Architecture and art critic, writer John Bentley Mays dies at age 75

John Bentley Mays (pictured) was born in Shreveport, La., on June 22, 1941, to a family of cotton planters. (Photo: John Bentley Mays website)

TORONTO—Longtime architecture and visual art critic John Bentley Mays has died.

The Globe and Mail newspaper says Mays was struck by “a sudden and fatal heart attack” on Sept. 16. He was 75.

Mays had served as the Globe’s art critic from 1980 to 1998, also casting his eye toward architecture in a column called Citysites.

He served as a cultural correspondent for the National Post from 1998 until 2001 and also worked as an affairs columnist for the Catholic Register. As well, he contributed to periodicals including Azure, Canadian Architect, Canadian Art, and lnternational Architecture and Design.

At the time of his death, Mays was an architecture columnist for the Globe. And just two weeks earlier, he had completed work on a novel.

Mays was born in Shreveport, La., on June 22, 1941, to a family of cotton planters.

He moved to Toronto in 1969 after securing a teaching job at York University while studying medieval literature and literary criticism at the University of Rochester.

Two years later, he met his future wife Margaret Cannon while road-tripping through New Mexico. The couple married within a few weeks.

Mays’ books include “ln the Jaws of the Black Dogs: A Memoir of Depression” and “Power in the Blood: Land, Memory and a Southern Family.”

Mays is survived by his wife, writer and columnist Margaret Cannon; his daughter Erin Mays; her husband Simon Cain; his stepdaughter Jacquelyn Hutcheson Peters; and his grandchildren Ava Gonzalez, Rebekkah Peters and Alyxandra Peters.

A requiem mass will be held Saturday in Toronto.