Marc Pachter, who transformed the National Portrait Gallery in Washington from a collection primarily of solemn paintings of old white men into a more up-to-date museum that now includes illustrations and interviews with diverse living luminaries, died on Feb. 17 while vacationing in Bangkok. He was 80.

As director of the Portrait Gallery from 2000 to 2007, Mr. Pachter presided over a $300 million renovation that reimagined the museum while maintaining its artistic integrity.

Mike Nussbaum, one of the oldest working actors in the U.S., who appeared in films, on TV, and on the stage, died Dec. 23, at his home in Chicago. He was 99.

On film, he appeared in “Fatal Attraction,” “Field of Dreams,” “Men in Black,” “House of Games,” “Things Change,” “Harry and Tonto,” “Losing Josiah” and “Steal Big Steal Little.” On television, he performed in “The Equalizer,” “The X-Files,” “Brooklyn Bridge,” “Separate But Equal,” “Frasier,” “L.A. Law,” “227,” “The Commish,” and “Early Edition.” He was the first actor to portray Teach in David Mamet’s “American Buffalo,” and originated the role of George Aaronow in the 1984 Broadway production of “Glengarry Glen Ross.” He also played Albert Einstein in Mamet’s “Relativity.”

Shecky Greene, a high-energy stand-up comedian who for many years was one of the big stars in Las Vegas, died on Dec. 31 at his home in Las Vegas. He was 97.

Mr. Green was a frequent guest of Ed Sullivan, Johnny Carson and other television hosts, and had acting roles ink movies and on television. In Las Vegas, though, he was “an institution,” The New York Times said. He told stories, he made faces, he ad-libbed, he did impressions, he sang — he would do just about anything for a laugh.

Interviewed by The Washington Times in 2017, Mr. Greene looked back on his career philosophically: “Why did I do this and that? At 90, I still don’t know. Once in a while I’ll have a nice sleep. Most nights, I wake up yelling, ‘Why did I do that?’”

Sidney M. Wolfe, a physician and consumer advocate who for more than 40 years hounded the pharmaceutical sector and the Food and Drug Administration over a variety of issues, died on Jan. 1 at his home in Washington, DC. He was 86.

Dr. Wolfe’s complaints included high prices, dangerous side effects, and overlooked health hazards. His work brought a new level of transparency and accountability to medical care.

Along with the consumer advocate Ralph Nader, Dr. Wolfe founded the Health Research Group in 1971 and, over the next four decades,  used it as a base for his relentless campaigns on behalf of healthcare users. At the door to his office, on the seventh floor of a dingy building near Dupont Circle in Washington, he hung a sign that read “Populus lamdudum defultatus est” — roughly translated from Latin as “The people have been screwed long enough.”

Dr. Wolfe received a MacArthur Fellowship, also known as a “genius grant,” in 1990. From 2008 to 2012, he served on the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, a part of the FDA. He retired from running the Health Research Group in 2013, but remained active, insisting that he had significantly cut back his time commitment from 60 or more hours a week to a mere 40 to 45.

Gerry Holzman, a master woodcarver, who conceived and toiled for 20 years to build a merry-go-round that celebrated New York State with riding animals like a beaver, a cow and a pig as well as portrait panels of citizens like Susan B. Anthony, Grandma Moses and Theodore Roosevelt, died on Dec. 8 at his home in Brunswick, Maine. He was 90.

The carousel, which is 36 feet wide and 23 feet high, was built with the help of about 1,000 volunteer carvers, woodworkers, painters and quilters.

It is a permanent and popular attraction at the Farmers’ Museum in Cooperstown, NY.

 Joseph Lelyveld, a former executive editor and foreign correspondent for The New York Times, who won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction for his book, Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White, died on Jan. 5 at his home in Manhattan. He was 86.

Mr. Lelyveld was one of the most respected journalists in America for nearly four decades, a globe-trotting adventurer, who reported from Washington, Congo, India, Hong Kong, Johannesburg and London, winning acclaim for his prolific and perceptive articles.

At home, he rose up through The Times’s editorial staff to become its executive editor, arguably the most powerful post in American journalism. In his seven years at the helm, from 1994 to 2001, The Times expanded its national and international readerships, introduced color photographs to the front page, created new sections, and ushered in the digital age with a website and round-the-clock news operations.

In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Lelyveld won awards from the Overseas Press Club, the Sidney Hillman Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and two George Polk Memorial Awards from Long Island University.

Martha Diamond, who captured the changing face of New York’s buildings, streets and vistas with simple expanses of color, died on Dec. 30. She was 79.

She began drawing as a child, and often accompanied her father, a physician, to hospital rounds near the Central Park Conservatory Garden. She remained awe-struck many decades later by the looming Manhattan skyline that appeared as they drove across the Queensboro Bridge.

Among her successes, she appeared in the Whitney’s influential 1984 “MetaManhattan” show as well as in its 1989 Biennial; she won a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1980, and an Academy Award for Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2001. Her work has been acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney, the MOMA, and the Guggenheim, among others.