Arthur Sussman

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Local Artist Explored Spirituality in Work

By Bruce Daniels

Journal Staff Writer

Arthur Sussman, an Albuquerque artist whose paintings and stained-glass windows reflected Old Testament and Native American spiritual themes, died Thursday (1/10/2008) after a long illness. He was 80.

Services will be held for Sussman at 11 a.m. Tuesday at Congregation Albert, 3800 Louisiana NE.

Born March 30, 1927, in Brooklyn, Sussman at first wanted to become a chemical engineer, but became an artist when he joined the Navy around 1945, said his wife, Judith Sussman.

"They needed an artist, so he became one," she said.

Sussman also got a vocational boost from his grade adviser in a Brooklyn high school: the legendary humorist, writer and television personality Sam Levenson, who once asked Sussman what he liked to do.

"I like to draw," Sussman told Levenson, who then told him: "Be an artist."

Levenson and his son later came to a show of Arthur Sussman's work in New York City and loved his art, his wife said.

The Sussmans moved to Albuquerque in September 1965, and traveled around the world with their Doberman pinscher. They lived for a time in Mexico, Spain and Israel, where he saw the scenes of the Bible come intensely alive, Judith Sussman said.

But he loved Albuquerque "and he loved New Mexico," she said.

The New Mexico Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe and the Albuquerque Museum of Fine Arts have works by Sussman in their permanent collections.

Besides his wife of 53 years, he is survived by two daughters, Hannah Sussman Brumer of Los Angeles and Rachel Sussman McLeod of Albuquerque; and five grandchildren.