Saddened to read of the death of bass giant, Charlie Haden (1937–2014)... but, boy, what a legacy to leave behind! Could post a link to Alice Coltrane's mesmeric Isis and Osiris or his own Song for Che from Liberation Music Orchestra (pictured, Haden far right), but here's the seminal Lonely Woman with Ornette Colman.

Hans Hollein (1934-2014)

Image: European Centre of Volcanism, 1994-2002, Auvergne, France

Alain Resnais (1922—2014), Hiroshima mon amour, 1959 [Photo: here]

• Yusef Lateef, 1920-2013

• Junior Murvin (standing, right), 1946-2013

• Anthony Caro (1924-2013), Month of May, 1963

• Bernadette Lafont, 1938-2013

• Paolo Soleri, 1919—2013, architect of under-populated Arizona ecotopia, Arcosanti. Wonderful pictures found here and here.

The death of Mrs Thatcher, that cartoonish super-villain of the 1980s, engenders some peculiar feelings. Compassion, forgiveness and magnanimity may make weak ideological attributes but as emotions they should still be cherished. I always imagined her as Lady Macbeth, trying to expunge the stain of humble beginnings like a phantom spot of blood.

There's an overriding sense of nostalgia in watching the footage rotate this week and thinking about the creative dissent she inspired. Not just alternative/counter-cultural comedy or cinema, but real mainstream stuff too; being seen to extol a message while wholly revelling in the glitz.

I spent half an hour researching contemporaneous lefty-pop for an evocative post: Ghost Town, The Style Council, that Blow Monkey's song with Curtis Mayfield, The Communards… you get the picture. Then I remembered watching the mighty Robert Wyatt's version of Shipbuilding as a bemused 12 year old... it's not something you forget in a hurry. 

• Maggie-Maggie-Maggie, 1925—2013 

• Jason Molina of Songs: Ohia, 1973-2013

• Fontella Bass, 1940—2012

 
• Alex Moulton, 1920—2012

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I've been wanting to write something about my mum, who died without warning in June (a fortnight after the boy's arrival), but I figured a gift illustrator's blog wasn't the best forum for unchecked grief and the raw pain of loss. Profoundly felt emotions may seem vulgar when expressed and I worried that, once begun, I'd not want to to stop. Healthy for me perhaps, but awkward for everybody else.

So, more simply, I'd post a few photos of her antics and more outré outfits over the decades (especially the 1980s, my mum's middle age was an absolute renaissance) but I suspect —as an awe-struck son— I'd make a too subjective selection right now. Maybe next year.

Then, last week I noticed 'August Bank Holiday 1957' written on the back of a b/w snap of the folks. 55 years ago today. At the end of her eighteenth summer, believe me, this girl was just getting started.

• Rita Joyce Underwood, 1938-2012

• Chris Marker, 1921-2012 (La Jetée, 1962)

Chances are you'll have already read an obituary or two on the wonderful painter Mary Fedden (1915-2012) this week, but it's always nice to post a few pictures... even though I've inadvertently made the gloomiest selection!

Joop Zoetemelk trains with his wife, Francoise. In 1980 Joop won the Tour de France on a TI Raleigh frame designed by Alan Oakley (1927-2012)

Our Love

Donna Summer (1948-2012) featured on a handful of popular culture's finest moments, for sure, but that AIDS-as-punishment-from-God controversy was a real stinker and no mistake. Here's the only link I can find to 1979's Our Love, a track not really cited in today's obituaries though I love the Acid touches at the end/drum pattern on the chorus... and so did New Order! The images are Gran Fury's late 80s agitprop for ACT UP, to whom she later apologised.

 

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David Weiss (of Fischli & Weiss), 1946-2012

Saddened by the deaths this week of Adam "MCA" Yauch and the outspoken Maurice Sendack. Sendack's work had seen such a resurgence of interest in these past few years, been made so ubiquitous, that I was temporarily blind to it. An interview with Tom McCarthy highlighted structural similarities with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (c. 1899), recast Max as Kurtz, and made me revisit Where the Wild Things Are (1963); noticing—for the first time—that smart formal game whereby the bordered illustrations progress to fill the page, form wordless double spreads at the carnivalesque climax and fall away once more at the tail end. Proper genius.

• The In Sound from Way Out! Gershon Kingly & Jean Jaques Perrey's 1966 thrift-classic which forms the nominal inspiration for both The Beastie Boys' 1996 LP and Stereolab.

• Leonard Rosoman (1913-2012), Figure in Garden with Sunflowers, 1956