#RIP #OTD in 1606, member of a group of provincial English Catholics involved in the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605, Guy Fawkes was hanged, drawn and quartered at the Old Palace Yard at Westminster, aged 35. Body parts distributed to “the four corners of the kingdom”
#RIP #OTD in 1956 author, poet, (Winnie-the-Pooh) A. A. Milne died at his home in Hartfield, Sussex, England aged 74. Cremation. Memorial plaque, Ashdown Forest.
On this day in 2006, Scottish prima ballerina and actress, Moira Shearer, Lady Kennedy, died at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, England at the age of 80. Born Moira Shearer King on 17 January 1926 in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland. Perhaps best known for her first film role as Victoria Page in the Powell & Pressburger ballet-themed film The Red Shoes, (1948). She was married to Ludovic Kennedy (1950 – 2006 her death). They were married in the Chapel Royal in London’s Hampton Court Palace and in their vows did not include the word “obey”. 
The Final Fooprint – Shearer is interred in Durisdeer Cemetery, Durisdeer, Scotland. Her grave is marked with an upright stone marker. Her inscription includes her name, birth and death years and the following; In memory of a much loved wife, mother, & grandmother.
#RIP #OTD in 2007 newspaper columnist (The Texas Observer, The New York Times, Dallas Times Herald, Fort Worth Star-Telegram), author, political commentator, and humorist, Molly Ivins died at her Austin, Texas, home in hospice care, aged 62. Cremation
On this day in 2012, painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and poet Dorothea Tanning died at her Manhattan home at age 101. Born Dorothea Margaret Tanning on August 25, 1910 in Galesburg, Illinois.
After attending Knox College for two years (1928–30), she moved to Chicago in 1930 and then to New York in 1935. There she supported herself as a commercial artist while pursuing her own painting, and discovered Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art’s seminal 1936 exhibition, Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism. After an eight-year relationship, she was married briefly to the writer Homer Shannon in 1941. Impressed by her creativity and talent in illustrating fashion advertisements, the art director at Macy’s department store introduced her to the gallery owner Julien Levy, who immediately offered to show her work. Levy later gave Tanning two one-person exhibitions (in 1944 and 1948), and also introduced her to the circle of émigré Surrealists whose work he was showing in his New York gallery, including the German painter Max Ernst.
Tanning first met Ernst at a party in 1942. Later he dropped by her studio to consider her work for an exhibition of work by women artists at The Art of This Century gallery, which was owned by Peggy Guggenheim, Ernst’s wife at the time. As Tanning recounts in her memoirs, he was enchanted by her iconic self-portrait Birthday (see above). The two played chess, fell in love, and embarked on a life together that took them to Sedona in Arizona, and later to France. They lived in New York for several years before moving to Sedona, where they built a house and hosted visits from many friends crossing the country, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lee Miller, Roland Penrose, Yves Tanguy, Kay Sage, Pavel Tchelitchew, George Balanchine, and Dylan Thomas. Tanning and Ernst were married in 1946 in a double wedding with Man Ray and Juliet Browner in Hollywood. They were married for 30 years.
In 1949, Tanning and Ernst relocated to France, where they divided their time between Paris and Touraine, returning to Sedona for intervals through the early and mid 1950s. They lived in Paris and later Provence until Ernst’s death in 1976 (he had suffered a stroke a year earlier), after which Tanning returned to New York. She continued to create studio art in the 1980s, then turned her attention to her writing and poetry in the 1990s and 2000s, working and publishing until the end of her life. Tanning died on January 31, 2012, at her Manhattan home at age 101.
The Final Footprint
Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris. Other notable final footprints at Père Lachaise include: Honoré de Balzac, Georges Bizet, Jean-Dominique Bauby, Maria Callas, Chopin, Colette, Auguste Comte, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Max Ernst, Molière, Jim Morrison, Gerard de Nerval, Édith Piaf, Camille Pissarro, Marcel Proust, Sully Prudhomme, Gioachino Rossini, Georges-Pierre Seurat, Simone Signoret, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Oscar Wilde, and Richard Wright.
Birthday, 1942, oil on canvas, 40 1/4 x 25 1/2 in./102.2 x 64.8 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art. ©The Estate of Dorothea Tanning
Ernst and Tanning
Some Roses and their Phantoms, 1952, oil on canvas, 29 7/8 x 40 1/4 in./76.3 x 101.5cm, Tate Modern.
Hôtel du Pavot, Chambre 202 (Poppy Hotel, Room 202) 1970-73, mixed media, 133 7/8 x 122 1/8 x 185 in./340 x 310 x 470 cm, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, ©The Estate of Dorothea Tanning
Etched Murmurs, 1984, oil on canvas, 12 2/5 x 8 1/4 in./31.4 x 21cm, Spaightwood Galleries.
#RIP #OTD in 2015 actress and model (The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Dead Reckoning, Desert Fury, Too Late for Tears) Lizabeth Scott died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles, aged 92. Cremation
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