NANCY KATZ

KATZ--Nancy Lee.

Nancy left us on March 22 at the age of 70, after a nine year struggle with cancer. The last three years were difficult and the last few months intolerable: she was unable to take pictures, cook, swim, or ride her bike. Nancy Lee Katz was born on June 12, 1947 to Babette and Sidney Katz. After a year and a half at college in West Virginia, she took off to Europe and Morocco for as long as her thousand dollars lasted, a year and a day. Upon her return, she worked as an assistant film editor and still photographer for films and then privately as a portrait photographer. However, her passion and life's work were taking formal photographs of her pantheon: people, mainly in the arts, whose work she respected. Always visual, she was with a camera from childhood, and on occasion drew and painted. She had a brilliant eye, both for her own photographs and for the collection of 19th century photographs that she curated for Israel. And there were the trips, first SCUBA diving, and then, for three decades, following Nancy's intense curiosity about how people present themselves visually, visiting the most traditional peoples we were able to reach, in remote areas of, for instance, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Namibia, New Guinea, Mongolia, and Yemen. Equal to her love of adventure and travel was her passion for music and for art. She heard Parsifal, her favorite opera, just days before her death. Nancy was a mensch, totally lacking in malice and infinitely forgiving. She was ferociously independent, considerate and respectful of others, but impervious to social pressure. She led her life her way. Nancy leaves sister Virginia Katz, film editor, sister Peggy Katz Crook (Tully), artist and sculptor, and Michael Solomon Sachs, her soul mate. At Nancy's request, there will be no funeral or memorial service. Her estate is dedicated to cancer research.