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NEW YORK, Dec 2, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Roy Newell, a painter of geometric abstracts and original member of the American Abstract Expressionist movement, has died in New York at age 92.
Newell suffered from cancer and passed away Nov. 22, according to his wife, Anne Cohen.
Newell's oeuvre is believed to be fewer than 100 paintings due to his "relentless perfectionism," The New York Times said. "He was a slow, episodic worker, showing seldom in a career of almost 70 years."
Born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in 1914, he worked continuously on a painting until sometimes the paint was an inch thick on the canvas.
His personality would never allow him to consider a painting "finished." The Times wrote of one incident where he actually requested a painting back from a collector so that he could continue to rework it.
Newell was a founding member of the Eighth Street Artists' Club of the early 1950s. The Times said Willem de Kooning considered him a friend, once giving one of his works to the Guggenheim Museum, one of the few by Newell hanging in a major museum.
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
