Morton Abramowitz, a former American diplomat and conflict mediator whose efforts to end and avoid wars, included helping to arm anti-Soviet guerrillas in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and founding the International Crisis Group for peace in the 1990s, died Nov. 29 at home in Washington, D.C. He was 91. As an adviser, analyst and three-time ambassador, Mr. Abramowitz influenced U.S. policymaking in Europe and Asia, and helped forecast shifting priorities as the Cold War ended [...]

David Bonderman, a founder of the giant investment firm TPG, who helped transform private equity into a multitrillion-dollar industry that reshaped corporate America, died on Dec. 11. He was 82. Mr. Bonderman, a lawyer, took various legal paths over his career — law professor, civil rights lawyer, corporate lawyer — before becoming a financier. That led him to create what is now TPG, a $239 billion behemoth that buys companies, invests in start-ups, makes loans [...]

Art et Industrie was not a typical SoHo gallery. Nor was its proprietor, Rick Kaufmann, a typical SoHo gallerist. His wares were inscrutable objects that hinted at utility. Were they art or were they furniture? Mr. Kaufmann died on Nov. 2 in Carbondale, PA. He was 77. Mr. Kaufmann, an incubator of what might be called the New York chapter of the art furniture movement — that is furniture made by artists, in single [...]

Manfred Ohrenstein, a reformer who served in the New York State Senate for 34 years and successfully championed progressive legislation that safeguarded rent controls, legalized abortion, and repealed the death penalty, died on Nov. 18 at his home in Manhattan. He was 99. In addition to his government service, Mr. Ohrenstein was a founder of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Lower Manhattan.

Richard Perry, a record producer who became one of the most sought-after figures behind the scenes of pop music in the 1970s and ‘80s through his work with Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, the Pointer Sisters and others, died on Dec. 24 in Los Angeles. He was 82. A trained oboist and drummer who had sung in a teenage doo-wop group, Mr. Perry had a deft ear for crafting the sharpest and most appealing performance of [...]