Paul Kasmin (1960–2020)

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Paul Kasmin (1960–2020) | The gallerist Paul Kasmin, whose eponymous gallery was instrumental in establishing Chelsea as the art hub of New York in the 1960s, has died at the age of 60. Born in London in 1960, the son of art dealer John Kasmin who helped to launch the career of David Hockney, Kasmin founded his first SoHo gallery in 1989, and would go on to open three further galleries in the city, promoting the work of artists including Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, Iván Navarro, Jamie Nares, Mark Ryden, and Bosco Sodi, as well as artists whom he felt were under-represented.

Major earthquake damages spire of Zagreb Cathedral | The most forceful earthquake to hit Croatia in 140 years has seriously damaged Zagreb Cathedral, causing one of its 108m-tall spires to topple. Various other heritage sites in the city’s Old Town have also been damaged, while the tremor appears to have caused pottery and statuary in the Archaeological Museum to fall and break. The foundations of the cathedral, which is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary and the Hungarian kings Saint Stephen and Saint Ladislaus, date back to the 11th century; it was extensively rebuilt in the 19th century after the earthquake of 1880.

Alberto Uderzo (1927–2020) | Alberto Uderzo, the co-creator of the Asterix comic series, has died at the age of 92. The artist met writer René Goscinny in the 1950s; in 1959, the two published their first Asterix the Gaul strip in the French magazine Pilote. After Goscinny died in 1977, the popular series was both written and drawn by Uderzo.

San Francisco Art Institute may close | Last night (23 March), the president of the San Francisco Art Institute, Gordon Knox, and the chair of the board of trustees, Pam Rorke Levy, announced that the school may be forced to close after this spring semester unless it could secure a partnership that would enable it to continue operating. They cited both existing financial problems and the immediate economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.