Mark Gotbaum

1943 - 2012
Mark Gotbaum, beloved husband, father, friend and neighbor, died unexpectedly in his home on Thursday, March 29, 2012. An artist, Gotbaum was well known to be as perplexing, humorous, engaging and infuriatingly incisive as his paintings. Even to those who knew him best, he could be simultaneously difficult and passionately caring. Given to acts of prankishness, he once hitch-hiked to Stockbridge, Massachusetts to sneak into the Tanglewood music festival and was promptly arrested by the town's chief of police, Wm. Obanhein ("Officer Obie"), who, flattered at being so exuberantly recognized by the young Gotbaum, released him with a warning.

Born in the Bronx on March 24, 1943, he grew up in the Tiebout Avenue neighborhood, attended The High School of Music and Art and went on to graduate from the City College of New York, where he played varsity basketball. Athletic in many respects, his elusively difficult Tasmanian Crawl was never successfully mastered by other swimmers. With an all-consuming passion for art, he painted virtually all day, every day, with little apparent interest in financial gain, and spent 23 years teaching art to seniors (his "alter cockers") at the 92nd Street Y. His deepest devotion, though, was to his daughter Maddy.

While he was happy to pour months of unpaid work into paintings, drawings and sketches for others – and usually did – Gotbaum sometimes accepted compensation: for the covers of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine; award-winning political cartoons for Public Employee Press; the Book Review, Op Ed page, and other sections of The New York Times; and for more recent private commissions. His work often utilized academic techniques in expressions of social, political and personal commentary, both contemporary and historical. Aesthetically, it ranged from the classically beautiful to the macabre. Plagued by a deep sense of social consciousness, he once instigated a heated, public argument with then mayor Ed Koch between showings of the film Mississippi Burning. In apology, he sent Koch an illustration he had once done of the mayor, who responded with a letter of appreciation, calling it "the best likeness [he had] ever seen."

As an artist, Mr. Gotbaum also set a landmark legal precedent, (NYT, "Judge Paints Portrait of an Artist as a Tenant, " 09/09/99), successfully representing himself in a dispute with his landlord, who was attempting to impose a commercial lease on the residential, rent-regulated studio apartment he had occupied for decades. To the relief of artists – and the dismay of landlords – the judge's decision stated that "many artists," including Chagall, Picasso, Giacometti, Duchamp, Warhol and O'Keeffe, "have used their homes as art studios," and that "van Gogh even made his bedroom the subject of one of his paintings."

Friends and family will miss his humor, sense of social justice, political acumen, charisma, and his torn, paint-stained jeans. He is survived by his wife, Julie Marcus, his daughter, Madeline Gotbaum, and their dog, Chewy, who will especially miss his comfort, care, and love.