Advertisement

PASSINGS: Edmund Pillsbury, George Schwartz, Dorothy Kemps, Stanford Parris, Harold McGraw Jr.

Share

Edmund Pillsbury

Ex-chief of Fort Worth art museum

Edmund Pillsbury, 66, who turned Fort Worth’s Kimbell Art Museum into a world-renowned institution during his 18 years as director, died Thursday, according to the Kaufman County Sheriff’s Department.

Advertisement

Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries, where Pillsbury worked, said he died of what appeared to be a heart attack while returning from lunch with a consignor.

After stepping down from the Kimbell in 1998, Pillsbury served as director of the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University for about two years. He was Heritage’s chairman of fine arts and director of museum services and had been with the auction house about five years.

Edmund Pennington Pillsbury, known as Ted, was an Italian Renaissance scholar who earned his bachelor’s degree at Yale in 1965. He directed the university’s Center for British Art before moving to the Kimbell Museum.

Under his careful eye and guidance, the Kimbell acquired such major works as Jacques-Louis David’s “The Anger of Achilles,” Diego Velazquez’s “Portrait of Don Pedro de Barberana,” Georges de La Tour’s “The Cheat With the Ace of Clubs” and Caravaggio’s “The Cardsharps.”

As the cosmopolitan public face of the Kimbell, Pillsbury was a model of worldliness, able to converse in French and Italian and read German.

He spent part of his childhood in Minneapolis, where his great-grandfather founded the flour mill that became Pillsbury Co.

Advertisement

George Schwartz

Politician caught in Abscam sting

George X. Schwartz, 95, a longtime Philadelphia City Council member whose career was ended by his conviction in the Abscam public corruption case, died Friday at home after being hospitalized five weeks ago with pneumonia, said his son, William G. Schwartz.

His career unraveled after he was videotaped in January 1980 accepting $30,000 from an FBI agent posing as a phony sheik’s representative.

The agent told Schwartz that the sheik planned to build a luxury hotel and wanted to establish relationships with influential public officials.

Schwartz -- one of more than half a dozen local officials caught in the FBI sting -- was convicted of conspiracy and extortion. After a lengthy legal battle, he began serving in 1985 a one-year, one-day federal prison sentence.

Advertisement

Schwartz, born in 1915 in New York, earned a bachelor’s degree and law degree at Temple University. He was elected to the City Council in 1960 and served as council president from 1972 until he resigned in 1980.

Dorothy Kemps

Leader of KCET volunteer efforts

Dorothy Kemps, 94, who served as director of volunteers at KCET-TV Channel 28 for 20 years, died March 20 at Glendale Adventist Medical Center of complications from congestive heart failure and pneumonia, her family announced.

Kemps was director of KCET’s volunteer services from 1973 to 1993, helping to coordinate the public television station’s pledge drives. She volunteered for many community service efforts, including support groups for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Hollywood Bowl.

Born Feb. 16, 1916, in Milwaukee, she moved with her family to Glendale as a teenager.

She married William Worth “Bud” Kemps in 1935, and they had three children. After raising her family, she earned her bachelor’s degree in sociology at UCLA in 1969.

Advertisement

Stanford E. Parris, a former six-term Virginia congressman, died Saturday at his home in Virginia from heart disease, said his former chief of staff, Dick Leggett. Parris, who twice ran unsuccessfully for governor, was 80.

Harold McGraw Jr., chairman emeritus and former chief executive of McGraw-Hill Cos., the publishing and financial analysis company that publishes trade magazines and educational materials and owns the Standard & Poor’s credit-ratings agency, died of natural causes Wednesday at his home in Darien, Conn. He was 92.

-- times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com

Advertisement