His championing of radiocarbon dating and other new scientific approaches demonstrated the untenability of the conventional explanation for cultural change

A champion of contemporary Indigenous artists, prolific creator across a range of media and relentless critic of dominant US ideology, Smith received institutional support and success late in life

Baer was equally renowned for her work in Minimalist abstraction and figurative painting

Following successful stints at museums in Virginia and on Florida’s Gulf Coast, De Groft’s career became mired in the Basquiat fakes fiasco

Lynch trained as a painter before becoming a successful film-maker and ultimately returning to visual art in recent decades

His work for brands such as Benetton sparked conversations about issues including the Aids crisis and anorexia

Garner's witty deviations in form, text and body addressed the consumerism and sameness plaguing US culture

Known for his bold, bright-hued paintings, prints and murals, Average was a pillar of Vancouver’s creative community

The late artist was actually quite sociable and had stopped producing "thick" paintings decades ago, says his only child

The Southern Baptist peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia, was a dedicated amateur portraitist and made a deep cultural impact when in office

Faith Ringgold, Frank Auerbach, Richard Serra, Barbara Gladstone and Lorraine O’Grady were among those who died this year

Sánchez, who fled Cuba and ultimately settled in Puerto Rico, only achieved widespread critical acclaim late in her career

O’Grady, who devoted herself to art in her early forties, spent the ensuing decades making incisive works that spanned photography, collage, performance and more

Warsaw-born RIBA gold medal winner, who became the professor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, changed architectural understanding

The French-born London-based artist merged the once-siloed worlds of art and design to create inimitably intimate participatory experiences

Charismatic leader who steered the museum through a difficult period in the 1980s, and later became a university vice-chancellor

The headline-making director-general of Unesco, who clashed with Reagan and Thatcher, died recently at the age of 103

The German-born British painter, a leading figure in the School of London, produced some of the most enduring and perceptive observations of what it meant to be alive during his time

Kureshi decorated India’s public spaces with beautiful, provocative and socially engaged murals

Acclaimed photojournalist's teenage son charged with his murder on a popular hiking trail near Los Angeles

The former editor of Connaissance des Arts was a leading figure in the French art market

Boshier’s work was often critical of US politics and consumerism

Horn maintained a powerful drawing strand that supported her innovative conceptual sculpture practice around the human body in installations, performances and photographs

The artist Erin Lawlor recalls her time spent with the art historian, who wrote defining texts on artists such as Mark Rothko and offered critical support for the next generation

The artistic director of Serpentine, recalls 35 years of friendship and collaboration with the cultural impresario who was one of the most important curators of the second half of the 20th century

A personal memoir recalling the French actor’s “serious case of collectoritis” that saw him acquiring works by Albrecht Dürer, Théodore Géricault and Georges Braque

The former director of Cologne’s Museum Ludwig “shaped the art discourse of the last five decades like no other", the museum says

A prolific painter helped open doors for contemporary artists at a time when Indigenous art was often confined to ethnographic museums

Hoepker used long-form pictorial narratives to deliver nuanced takes on complex realities in a communist East Germany and capitalist United States

The influential American pioneer produced a ground-breaking body of work in partnership with his wife, Kira Perov, over more than 45 years