Mary Heilmann, Influential Abstract Painter, Dead at 86

Mary Heilmann, an influential abstract painter who received her first solo exhibition in a New York museum in her 60s, died at 86 on Friday in Riverhead, New York. Her studio announced the news in an Instagram posting, adding that she died “due to complications from a fall.”Heilmann was a pioneering abstract painter who blended elements from pop culture, craft, and art history with ease and wit. In the catalog for Heilmann’s 2008 retrospective at the New Museum—also her f