Today, I learned that my friend, Michelle Marder Kamhi, died at the age of 87, after a long illness. I have known Michelle and her husband Louis Torres for over 30 years. They have been among my dearest and most loving friends.
Michelle was a graduate of Barnard College. She later earned an M.A. in Art History at Hunter College and was an editor at Columbia University Press. As an independent scholar and critic, she co-edited the arts journal Aristos with her husband Lou for more than three decades.
Lou and Michelle also co-authored What Art Is: The Esthetic Theory of Ayn Rand (Open Court, 2000), the first book to comprehensively examine Rand’s aesthetic theories. What Art Is was such an important milestone that it prompted The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies to devote a full symposium to Rand’s aesthetics in the Spring of 2001, the first of its kind.
Michelle later published two solo projects: Bucking the Artworld Tide: Reflections on Art, Pseudo Art, Art Education & Theory (2020) and Who Says That’s Art: A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts (2014).
These professional accomplishments convey only part of who Michelle was. She was a conscientious woman of integrity who was strong in her convictions and deeply supportive of those she loved.
I want to express my heartfelt condolences to Lou, Michelle’s son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren and to all those who share in this very deep loss.
Rest in peace, dear friend.
Michelle Marder Kamhi: June 9, 1937 – April 27, 2025
Postscript: See the various remembrances on Facebook and this lovely tribute from my dear friend Peter Saint-Andre.
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