Jeremy Blake apparently drowns self

Artist Jeremy Blake is missing, according to New York City investigators, and he apparently drowned himself Tuesday night, said Lance Kinz, co-owner of the Manhattan art gallery that represents Blake. Police said a man “tentatively identified” as Blake was seen stripping to his shorts and disappearing into the surf at Rockaway Beach in Queens, N.Y., where no body had been found by Friday. Kinz said Blake’s friends are convinced it was him because his wallet and clothes were found in the sand. Blake’s apparent suicide comes a week after he found his longtime girlfriend, writer-filmmaker Theresa Duncan, dead on the bed in their Manhattan apartment, where she had left a suicide note.

Duncan, 40, was to be buried today in her hometown of Lapeer, Mich. The New York City medical examiner’s office said toxicology tests were being done to determine the cause of her death.

Blake, 36, whose work has been included in the Whitney Biennial in New York and was scheduled for a fall solo show at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, D.C., is known especially for short films that also function like paintings, and for creating abstract art sequences for the movie “Punch-Drunk Love.”

After Duncan’s death, Kinz said, Blake “seemed shocked and shaken, but definitely in control and stable and coherent,” and was planning to attend her funeral. The couple recently had moved back to New York City after several years in Los Angeles. Duncan had a blog called the Wit of the Staircase.

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Mike Boehm