MICHAEL WARD

WARD--Michael Lauer. Michael Lauer Ward died on March 19th at age 82 due to complications from lung cancer. He drew his last breath as the sun rose over the East River, casting a golden light on all of New York, the city where he reinvented himself as a scholar of antiquities and all things beautiful. After graduating in 1965 from Lawrence University, Michael won a fellowship at The Cloisters while earning a PhD in medieval sculpture from The New York Institute of Fine Arts. On the first day of the semester, he fell in love with Stark Cameron. With his humility, humor, and loyalty, he became her best friend and confidante, a role he would continue to fulfill for the rest of his life. After marrying in 1968, the couple moved to Munich, Germany where Michael completed research for his dissertation on the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. Autumn found him balanced on a scaffolding photographing the portico while Stark braced the footing to keep the crowds from jostling his perch. In 1983, Michael opened Ward and Company Works of Art, an antiquities gallery on Manhattan's Upper East Side, renowned for its opening parties and inventive exhibitions guided by Michael's artistic vision. Always the first to deny the genius so many recognized in him, Michael was also the first to laugh at himself, to make others feel loved and appreciated. He took time to show students the soul in a work of art, placing an object in their hands so they might experience its weight and meaning across thousands of years of human history. Michael was driven by his pursuit of beauty. He understood his position as an art dealer to be an act of curation and love rather than a business. He was known for his fair prices and the quality of objects he chose and shared. In 1989 he was appointed to The President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities, where he served as an advisor on cultural issues. It would be easy to connect Michael's desire to collect and preserve as a reaction to the tragic and very public loss of his parents in Nebraska when he was 14. Rather, his passion for acquisition was a symbol of enduring strength, a fascination with history inherited from his father with whom he spent many happy moments fossil-hunting on the prairies. He designed his first exhibition in the basement of his childhood home when he was 10, charging the neighbors a dime to view his collection of carefully labeled fossils and arrowheads. Michael's past was a closed chapter until much later, when he exhumed his most painful memories so his daughter could write about him, a gesture of profound generosity. Inside the pain, he discovered moments of humor and happiness before retreating into more distant stories: Herodotus' The Histories, and War and Peace which he read twice over the course of a two-year period. Michael is survived by his wife Stark Cameron Ward, his daughter Liza Ward, grandchildren Wren Elizabeth and John Cameron Behr McCormick, their father William McCormick, as well as many cousins and countless friends who will forever miss Michael's soft and gentle smile. Please consider a donation in Michael's name to Swanvalleyconnections.org.