Knute Stiles

Knute Stiles Painter, art critic and poet, died December 1, 2009 in Tucson, Arizona. He was 86. Born in Minnesota in 1923, he attended the St. Paul Art School and later Black Mountain College in North Carolina; he served in the U.S. Army during World War II; worked the salmon boats in Alaska; co-managed, with Leo Krekorian, The Place, a well-known artists' bar in North Beach frequented by members of the Beat Generation and the S.F. Renaissance; taught drawing at the S.F. Art Institute; wrote art criticism for Art Forum and Art in America; was a dedicated avant-gardist painter and collagist, showing at the S.F. Museum of Modern Art and various galleries in San Francisco and New York; co-founded and mother-henned the long-surviving cooperative East-West House in San Francisco. He lived for several years in Mexico and spent his last twenty years in Bisbee, Arizona writing poetry and painting. Knute is survived by his nephew Al Stiles of Marine on St. Croix, Minnesota. A memorial is being planned; for details, please email Lynn Mechanic at lmech27838@aol.com.