MOLI VIEW™

Elizabeth Murray was a beautiful woman. Externally, of course: Those bright blue eyes and wavy, wiry, white hair. But more importantly, on the inside: She was kind, intelligent, interested and interesting, graceful and gracious. And of course, she made beautiful art: great tableaus of rich, swirling colors whose shapes were sometimes obvious to discern, sometimes left to the imagination. Two years ago, I walked amongst the canvases, some of them bending and thrusting, during a retrospective of her work at New York's Museum of Modern Art. I felt both lifted and stirred by her life's work, a life of works.

Elizabeth was also an independent woman, a feminist, and a rare female to break into the canon of great contemporary artists. (How many living artists get MOMA retrospectives? How many of them are women?) She was a formidable but approachable role model to me and my girlfriends in the ‘90s, when we knew her from her stately presence at readings at the Nuyorican Poets Café (where her husband, Bob Holman, was a director) and at meetings of the Women's Action Coalition. She supported us, materially and spiritually, especially when we needed it. I didn't know her well, but I'm glad I knew her, that I have memories of standing around the kitchen in her West Village townhouse during a white-out snowstorm, or of her trying to hold onto the leash of a giant puppy in my Dumbo loft during a reading/party around 2000. That's my last memory of this great painter; strangely, it's the only time I ever saw her looking slightly befuddled.

In the past month, two talented souls I had the great fortune of knowing in my New York salad days passed away. Sekou Sundiata was a poet and a teacher who I used to watch at venues like the Nuyorican, when they were my main haunts. He plugged the rhythms of jazz so completely into his spoken word that it was as if he were dancing when he read. He was also a very sensitive, gentle man, a deep-thinking soul, even when he was riffing hypnotically about being stopped by cops for driving while black (before that became a catchphrase). I hope all the def poets out there raised a glass to the sky when Sekou died July 18.

Elizabeth died Sunday in her upstate New York home. She had been ill with brain cancer for a long time. According to Bob, "Elizabeth just breathed gently into the day."

There will be a Praise Day for Elizabeth at the Bowery Poetry Club Saturday, August 25, and memorial at MOMA in November.

Evelyn McDonnell is MOLI's editorial director.

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