Gustave Caillebotte

popular name: Nusch Éluard

date_of_death: November 28, 1946

age: 40

cause_of_death: Stroke

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Nicknamed “Nusch” by artist Max Bill, she was a French performer, model and surrealist artist. In 1930 she met the poet Paul Éluard working as a model. They married him in 1934. She produced surrealist photomontage and other works, and is the subject of “Facile,” a collection of Éluard’s poetry published as a photogravure book, illustrated with Man Ray’s nude photographs of her. Later she was the subject of several cubist portraits and sketches by Pablo Picasso in the late 1930s with whom she had an affair. Nusch worked for the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II and died suddenly in 1946 in Paris, collapsing in the street due to a massive stroke.

popular name: Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

date_of_death: March 30, 1842

age: 86

cause_of_death: Ill health due to stroke

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun was one of the great portrait artists in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, easily the equal of Quentin de La Tour or Jean Baptiste Greuze. Born into relatively modest circumstances, she firmly established herself in society’s upper crust. After earning the favours of the king and his family, she became the official artist of Queen Marie Antoinette. One of the most successful women artists (unusually so for her time), particularly noted for her portraits of women, her father and first teacher, Louis Vigée, was a noted portraitist who worked chiefly in pastels. Her great opportunity came in 1779 when she was summoned to Versailles to paint a portrait of Queen Marie-Antoinette. The two women became friends, and in subsequent years Vigée-Lebrun painted more than 20 portraits of Marie-Antoinette in a great variety of poses and costumes. She also painted a great number of self-portraits, in the style of various artists whose work she admired. During her 60+ years as an artist, Le Brun created 660 portraits and 200 landscapes. In addition to many works in private collections, her paintings are owned by major museums such as the Louvre in Paris, Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, National Gallery in London, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and many other collections in Europe and the United States. Since 1999 the record price for an original Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun at auction is $7,185,900 USD for Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan (full-length holding his sword in a landscape).

popular name: Oscar Levant

date_of_death: August 14, 1972

age: 65

cause_of_death: Heart attack

claim_to_fame: Artists

best_know_for: Oscar Levant was a brilliant composer and pianist who originally studied seriously with Zygmunt Stojowski and later with Arnold Schoenberg. After New York he moved to Los Angeles where he met and befriended George Gershwin. From 1929 to 1948 he composed the music for more than twenty movies and began making the rounds on TV games shows and quickly gained notorioty for his acerbic "wit." When Greshwin passed away Levant became the leading interpreter and virtuoso performer of the Gershwin catalog. Appearing in films (such as American in Paris; usually as himself or as the host pianist) he could always be counted on for his stoic and sarcastic on-screen persona. In later years he became increasing dependent on alcohol, chain smoking and prescription drugs so much so he was committed multiple times to a mental institution.