Linda Egendorf

Linda Egendorf, an internationally-known jewelry designer and sculptor, died peacefully in her sleep on Monday. The cause of death was a rare cancer of unknown origin. She was 71. Her career included the sculpture "Aftermath", a tribute to the victims of the September 11th attacks, a picture of which first appeared on the cover of Art Calendar Magazine on September 16 as the first such public tribute, making pendants for Harvard University and the JFK Museum, and being the sole American woman to be accepted at the 2005 Japanese Toyamura International Sculpture Biennale. Her work was shown internationally, and in more than 100 invitational shows, winning her several Best-In-Show and numerous other awards, and appearing in numerous publications."Aftermath" will be donated later this year for display at the White House. Linda Lee Egendorf was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on July 19, 1946. Artistic from birth, and a top student, she left her working-class roots in the small town of Shady Side, Maryland to attend Pratt Institute, and then NYU, on full scholarships. It was at Pratt that she met, and later dated, soulmate Robert Mapplethorpe, who encouraged her - during the course of their many evenings together - to pursue a career in art. Years later, an article in The Boston Globe recounted their relationship as two teenagers away from home for the first time. She later moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts to get married, where she graduated Boston University summa cum laude. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design and The School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and studied jewelry sample-making, die-making, model-making, and welding. Early in her career she was a designer for established jewelry manufacturers, but later began manufacturing and selling her own lines of jewelry, for which she traveled to Mexico, Asia, and the Middle East. In 1994 she began to incorporate sculpture into her work, and in 1996 she switched to sculpture exclusively, working in metal, wood, and cloth, both as separate and as mixed media. She obtained a patent on a new procedure for making cloth sculptures. Ms. Egendorf was reluctant to sell what she considered her best sculptures, but earlier this year, when offered to trade one of her works for a "Le château de Chillon" by Gustave Courbet, she countered the offer with a proposal for a mutual loan of the works, provided that both works ended up being donated to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for its permanent collection. Her interests outside of her art were eclectic: she studied the behavior of raccoons that lived in the woods surrounding her house, hoping someday to publish something about them, helped several immigrant families adjust to their moves to the United States, was a member of the Communal Studies Association, the Ibsen Society, the Thomas Wolfe Society, and the Thoreau Society, and served a short stint as a Director of the Bertrand Russell Society. She was an expert on early 20th century American Art Pottery, and collected antique jewelry, mainly of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco styles. She is survived by her husband and best friend of more than 50 years, Andrew Egendorf, and by many cousins. Services were private; a memorial celebration will be announced. Ms. Egendorf asked that she be cremated and placed in a columbarium of her own (and a fellow artist's) design, in which she hoped her husband (and her artist friend and her friend's family) also would be interred. It is requested that no flowers be sent, and that those wishing to make a donation donate to their own favorite charity in their own name.