Neil Juhl Larsen, 1956 - 2006

It is with the deepest sadness that we report the death of a great friend to Charles Biederman, the writer and artist Neil Larsen. Neil died after a battle with cancer on the 22nd of August, one day before the centenary of Biederman’s birth. He was fifty years old.

It is doubtful that Biederman, through his long life, ever encountered anyone with quite so lucid an understanding of his work. After Charles died, Neil set out to articulate that understanding. In the fifteen years of their discourse together, he had amassed an enormous amount of material on Charles’s work and life, in preparation for what was to be his own life’s work as the writer Charles asked to tell the story of his artistic and intellectual achievements, a work he expected would absorb him for many years. Before death overtook him, Neil arranged for this critical work to be taken over by Susan Larsen [no relation] a scholar and art historian who has written knowledgeably on Biederman in the past. We are moved with respect for the courage with which Neil acted, in the face of grave illness, to honor Biederman’s bequest, protecting a great artist from undeserved oblivion. Charles could not have asked for a greater gift than this man’s friendship in the last years of his life. It is a cruel irony that the man he singled out to tell his story would himself die so soon thereafter. The sorrow of it will forever color the thoughts of those who knew both these men. Neil Larsen was a man of penetrating intellect and powers of perception. He was, moreover, a tender father, a loving husband, and the warmest of friends. We will miss him.

The friends and family of Neil Larsen