Eila Mirjam Kokkinen
April 25,1930 – June 29, 2023
Eila was born in Karstula, Finland, in 1930 and emigrated to the United States with her parents in 1939. She spent her adolescent years in Waukegan, Illinois, and went to college at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of Chicago, where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Art History and 20th Century Art, respectively. While studying at the University of Chicago, she was the art editor for the Chicago Review amid its censorship battle over publication of certain Beat writings.
Eila then moved to New York City, where she was involved with Abstract Impressionist art and Beat writers. She worked for the Museum of Modern Art during the 1960s and into the 1970s as an assistant curator of drawings and prints. Eila was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship with extensive studies on the artist John Graham. She also served the MIT Hayden Gallery and the Fogg Museum in Cambridge. In later years, she was employed by the State of New York.
Eila lived in New York City for most of her life before moving upstate. She resided in the Woodstock area for several decades and was involved in various art organizations as a volunteer and student. She also was a member of Women in Black, a women’s anti-war movement.
We are so happy to say that Eila lived independently for her entire life until her passing at age 93 after a very brief illness. She was intellectually engaged at all times, and she was passionate about social justice and the environment. She was a gifted art historian, researcher, and writer, as well as an artist herself. Eila was an amazing woman whom we admired so very much, and she will be deeply missed.
Eila was preceded in death by her parents Albert and Anna and her elder sister Irja Hartwig. She is survived by her daughter Sarah Paro of Minnesota and two grandsons, Ben (Catherine) of Minnesota and Sam of Colorado.
Burial has taken place at Woodstock Artists Cemetery.
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