Jay John Tuthill Lagemann (1944 - 2026)

Jay's wife Marianne notified us that Jay passed away the morning of September 9. Marianne wrote that "He was not in pain; it was quite peaceful. He was under some medication for comfort. He just did not wake up."

 

Jay's obituary from Chapman Funerals is here.

About Jay

Jay Lagemann, acclaimed sculptor, whose moveable tigers were a much-loved feature of our Reunions, died peacefully September 9, 2026, in Chilmark, Mass. The cause was cancer.
 
Jay came to Princeton from the Fieldston School, in New York City, where he was on the student council and played tennis and football. At Princeton, he majored in math, belonged to Cloister Inn, volunteered for the Trenton Tutorial Project, and was on the ski and bike teams. He roomed with Ken Kreidmann and Burnie Eaton.
 
After Princeton, Jay earned a Ph.D. in math from M.I.T. He then embarked on a multi-year journey, from Cambridge, Mass., to Martha’s Vineyard, with stops along the way in Maui, Spain, Brazil, Grenada, and Hollywood, and countless other spots, and from mathematics to tee-shirt sales to sculpture. His large public works are on display in New York City, Chilmark, Mass., and elsewhere. His smaller works are prized by private collectors.
 
All along the way, Jay was lovingly supported by his wife, Marianne Neill, and their children, Christiana Hodges and Jennifer Christy (the inspiration for Jenny of the  “Swinging Jenny” sculpture in New York City).
 
The Class extends its heartfelt condolences to Marianne, Chris, Jennifer, and Jay and Marianne’s grandchildren.

 

Lagemann Family at Home. Marianne and Jay lower right.

Jay's Art

 

Nassau Herald

Classmate Memories and Tributes

Ned Groth (added Oct 3)

Jay and I didn't know each other as undergrads. In fact, I think I met him for the first time at the 50th reunion. I was there early on Thursday afternoon, we were in Hamilton Courtyard as I recall, and Jay came in looking for help bringing his tigers in from outside the reunion gate on University Place. I was happy to help, so Jay and I unloaded the tigers from the trailer behind his van and I got to admire not only his/our iconic sculptures but also his ingenious system for transporting them. 

Once we had the tigers installed in their place of honor, Jay and I sat around and got to know each other a little better, over a beer or two. He told me about his life as a sculptor and I remember he said (words to the effect of) he'd always been able to create fine sculptures but he'd never been a success until Marianne became his partner and taught him how to market his art. 

Over the coming years the experience of helping Jay unload (or load) the tigers from that trailer would be repeated several times at Zastaria. Jay was a regular attendee at '66 at the Races and so was I. I'd be hanging around with nothing to do and Jay would arrive, and since I'd done it before...I noted that Jay's system for fastening and unfastening the felines on their trailer kept improving, making the task easier from year to year. He never rested with good enough when he could make something even better. 

Sarah was impressed by Jay's initiative in finding a foundry in Thailand so he was able to produce the miniature versions of the tigers, as well as other pieces. And last month we were eating lunch in a restaurant in Gloucester, Virginia. I looked out the window and saw a familiar sculpture in the park across the street. It was Jay's Blue Fisherman. The town of Gloucester invites an artist to put on a display each year. In 2021 Jay was the featured artist, and 10 of his sculptures were displayed along Main Street. After the exhibit, the town kept the one we saw as its reward. What an unexpected pleasure to be stopping in a small town in rural Tidewater Virginia and find a '66 connection right on Main Street.

I lived in Boston from 2015-21, and Jay was part of our regoonal lunch and email group. Between that and half a dozen weekends at Zastaria, I got to know him pretty well. He seemed to be pretty much a guy without guile: What you saw was what you got. He was a super-talented, successful (famous, even) artist but unpretentious, no temperamental airs, just a nice soft-spoken guy who made lovely sculpture that everyone could "get." He was an unrepentant liberal who had no patience for the nonsense we have to deal with every day. 

As his health had made him absent from class life over the past year, I'd been missing Jay. Now we'll miss him for the rest of our days, but he'll be there whenever his tigers join our gatherings. And as we found in Gloucester, you can find a piece of Jay's in lots of other places. Ars longa, vita brevis. RIP, Jay. 

 

Harlan Levy:

Jay John Tuthill Lagemann, a lifelong, close, brilliant friend for 64 years, has left this earth, diminishing my small circle of dear friends whom I’ve cherished for decades. It was devastating when his wife Marianne Neill, whom I am proud to say I introduced to Jay decades ago, called with the tragic news on September 9. At least I can take pleasure in knowing that he led a long and improbable life that was both extremely unconventional and enormously successful — especially in terms of happiness, creativity, and personal satisfaction. 
 
Jay and I became fast friends freshman year, during which we shot an adventure movie on campus, created a huge mural in front of Clio, and had countless hilarious weekend adventures together. 
 
After graduation, while he was in graduate school at MIT, we met often, beginning a history of adventures together.
 
After Jay obtained his PhD from MIT, to the great surprise of many given the amazing prodigy that he was, he decided not to pursue a career in math. Instead, he relocated to Martha’s Vineyard, where his parents owned property and a rambling home. Given his seafaring expertise, he passed some time joining the crews of assorted sailing excursions to the Bahamas. When the blockbuster movie “Jaws” began shooting on the Vineyard, Jay got a job as a handyman on the crew and had a joyful time putting his practical knowledge of all things mechanical to good use. To his disappointment, he was not mentioned in the movie credits.
 
Soon after, Jay began planning and constructing a large, two-story, unconventional house next to his parents’ home. To my astonishment, he later on even added an indoor pool.
 
The next time I visited the Vineyard, I told Jay I thought he should meet Marianne Neill, a talented graphic artist I had recently met through a friend. That quickly proved to be the end of Jay’s reputation as a suave “ladies’ man.” Eventually, Marianne and her daughters Jenny and Chris moved up to the Vineyard to join him, and Marianne and Jay started a t-shirt printing business. To my amazement, they soon secured an exclusive contract to create all of the t-shirts and sweatshirts for the iconic Black Dog Bakery & Restaurant. That allowed their business to thrive, and you can see their products everywhere.
 
Many years later, after the Black Dog contract ended, Jay decided on a whim to start making stick-figure sculptures. I will dare to confess now that I had some doubts, since he had no extensive artistic training to my knowledge. But I had clearly underestimated the natural abilities of my old friend. The sculptures were colorful, whimsical, and delightful, and everyone who saw them loved them. My wife and I even bought one of the originals, part of a series called Swinging Jenny, which still swings happily in our backyard. We also have several others, some very generously gifted on special occasions, others bought.
 
Gradually, Jay’s accumulating treasure trove of large metal figures — including dogs reading books, flag-waving families, and stick-figure Matisse-like dancing women — attracted a sizable following (including the likes of President Obama!) and he began garnering six-figure sales and commissions across the country.
 
Jay and I remained in close contact throughout, talking and often visiting each other, especially on his yearly trips with his much-celebrated tiger sculptures on the way to and from Princeton reunions. I’ve included a bunch of photos from the past few years, including one with my daughter Allegra, her now-husband JP, and Jay when he visited them in Hong Kong.
 
I will always miss Jay and our strong, ever-stimulating friendship, unhappily knowing now that when we joked about which one of us would go first, the always-vigorous Jay would once again prevail and beat me to the finish line.
 
Rest in peace, Jay. I’ll never forget you or the true friend you always were.

 

          

Dave Lee:

I did not know Jay as an undergraduate, but thanks to the great community of the Boston/New England Lunch Group, I had the privilege of getting to know Jay, and it was a terrific pleasure. I am very grateful to Rick Bowers, John Hart, Ned Groth, and Willy Osborn for coming up with the idea of this lunch group after our 50th reunion, and making it a reality.  I feel very lucky to have known Jay and enjoyed his company, his sense of humor, and his irrepressible optimism about life.  I always looked forward to seeing and talking to Jay!

 

To me, Jay was a like a shooting star who illuminated our class through his inspiring art, his joyful personality, and his love of life. Jay absolutely reveled in his contributions to the Great Class of 1966 through his amazing and artful Tigers. He took great pride in those Tigers and went to great lengths to share them with our class and others at the university. He is irreplacable, but his spirit will live on through his tigers, and through the great body of sculpture which has begun to spread widely, and I predict will spread further as his reputation and respect as an artist grows and evolves. Jay's life was unique as he traveled the road not taken by most of us. He had the intelligence and skills to have forged a career in mathematics, science or finance, but he chose sculpture and the slow, difficult path presented for every artist who believes in his work. His great devotion was to his family, and it was obvious they were at the center of his world.

 
Many of us got to visit Jay at his place on Martha's Vineyard, and a visit by my spouse Hallie and I shows the kind of hospitality Jay and Marianne could extend. In July 2021, Hallie and I sailed our Catalina 320 with two sailing friends to Edgartown over the Fourth of July. Jay picked us all up in Edgartown and drove us to his place in Chilmark. There he proceeded to prepare and grill stuffed lobster that was some of the best any of us had eaten. We toured Jay's sculpture garden and he freely spoke of his work and how it was created. Our friends were very impressed by some of Jay's sailing stories and how he came through a terrible storm with the help of an albatross showing him how to use the wind. 
 
On another trip we made port in Menemsha, where his amazing sculpture "The Swordfish Harpooner" stands. Jay's place in Chilmark is much closer to Menemsha than Edgartown. This time, Jay loaned us his car to drive around the island and especially to see The Cliffs of Acquinnah. On this occasion we were sailing our boat with our sailing club and two other boats had joined us. I think Jay enjoyed meeting other sailors and being reminded of his days on the ocean.  
 
Finally, in October 2023, Jennifer Swope, daughter of Jim Merritt, author of our amazing reunion books, and an MFA curator, gave us a special tour of collections at the MFA, and Jay joined us from the Vineyard, and stayed with us at our home in West Medford. Having our classes' most formidable artistic talent on the MFA tour was extra fun, and Jay had his own insights to add to the wonderful tour that Jennifer gave us.
 

To Jay: An unforgettable classmate and a needed force for artistic relevance in our world. Your work will live on, and inspire many others in the fullness of time.

 

                     Stu Steingold helps lead the class.  Jay carefully repairs a mid-Prade breakdown 

       

 

Steve Gaal:

I didn’t know Jay at Princeton and really became aware of him at our fiftieth and then of course during the Boston Princeton Zoom meetings that started during the pandemic.  Wendy and I and two other friends spent a week on the Vineyard 3 or 4 years ago and while at the country store, Alley’s I think, looked across the street, and saw actual, in the flesh, sculptures by Jay.  Always immediately recognizable.  Someone who gets a PhD in Math from MIT and then becomes an artist is someone who dances to his own drummer.  A remarkable person.  Not to mention being an incredible stepfather to his children.

 

John Lumpkin:

I was deeply saddened when I learned of Jay’s passing. While he had had health challenges over the last several years and was definitely in a bad way more recently, it is darn hard to come to grips that he is no longer with us.
 
In my case, I probably got to know Jay better increasingly over the last, say, decade plus. The pure joy he shared with me time and again was nothing short of contagious.
 
Two examples of our close friendship and warm relationship are as follows:
 
1. Obviously, his dedication to his/our Class and our Classmates, graphically displayed via his two 8’  ’66 Princeton Tiger creations. One of the first things I looked for when arriving at our reunion site over some number of years was Jay-with his wide smile and effusive demeanor- standing there next to his hitchhiking Tiger and his basketball Tiger. And boy did this always draw a crowd, with cameras clicking, etc, etc. Plus, this was merely a prelude to Jay and his Tigers raucously leading his/our Class of 1966 in the P-Rade!
 
Then there was a more distant road trip further south which Jay and his precious Tigers took for some years to stand at attention at the entrance to Zastaria (Julia and Stas) to welcome a large contingent of ‘66ers with spouses/guests to the annual ’66 Day at the Races.
 
 Maybe a year ago, my bedside cell phone rang around midnight. It was Jay who immediately put us on Face Time. You see, Jay was in the small metropolis of Beijing at a foundry casting his third 8’ Tiger. And this one was to be his masterpiece. A reading Tiger which he was intending to bring- with its two older siblings’-to our 60th reunion.
 
2. It would be around June of each year when Jay and I would spend hours on the phone ‘catching up’ while covering all manner of subjects. And there were at least two such occasions when the love of his life -Marianne-joined us on that call. Within days of that call (and the subject never came up when we spoke), I would find out that Jay had participated with ’66 in ag. And the amount would always be $19.66! Now, please understand that, until Jay some years back welcomed me to communicate the fact of his participation and the amount, the amount at which a Classmate might participate nor whether he might have participated at all-is otherwise kept in strictest confidence. So, Jay and I had much fun with letting Classmates know about his annual $19.66. Which, by the way, he did for 15 straight years.
 

My heart aches for Marianne and the family.

 

Jay being Jay somewhere on Martha's Vineyard

 

John Hart:

Once Freshman Week was over and classes started, Jay became my first '66 friend other than those I knew from high school and guys around Pyne Hall. We were in a couple of Math and Physics courses together and quickly bonded as part of a group who would talk before and after classes, in commons, and everywhere else, mostly about the challenging and exciting material being fed us as well as everything else male college freshmen discuss. While we rarely socialized together, our friendship continued all four years as we shared numerous courses and seminars. Jay was clearly smart, quickly got the key concepts, and was always just a touch faster understanding complex STEM (as we'd call it today) topics.

 

After graduation, we went our separate ways, Jay to MIT for a Math PhD, while I went to Penn in Computer Science. It emerged later that we worked on surprisingly similar topics related to mathematical logic. I went into teaching and later in industry, but that was not the life for Jay, although he would have been an excellent mathematician and professor. His was a life of adventure that I can only admire and envy from afar. We'd still touch base at reunions from time to time, and I'd hear about the Black Dog T-shirts, met Marianne and her daughters, and heard more of Jay's adventures. Jay's Tiger Talk and tributes from others cover Jay's life in this period well; I'll try to mention a few things others haven't.

 

Sometime as the years passed (was it as early as the 25th?), Jay showed up at Reunions with a new friend, the first of his famous tigers, probably "Hitchhiking Tiger". Later on, a second tiger appeared, "Basketball Tiger", so we now had "Charlie" and "Charlene". While others talked and partied, Jay would meticulously and lovingly put the final touches and repairs on the tigers as they stood by the site entrance. Before long, curious kids would come by, and then the adults too. Jay would be the center of attention, photo ops abounded, and he'd pull the tigers at the head of the class during the P-rade. Posing with Basketball Tiger became an annual rite for the women's basketball team as well as for some of the men players. Over the years, the tigers would appear at off-year reunions and At the Races, guarding the entrance to Zastaria. Jay loved the attention, and the P-rade crowd loved Jay. This reached a peak in 2023 at the 57th Reunion after PAW made Jay the "Tiger of the Week", and he became widely recognized. Stu Steingold pulled one tiger while Jay pulled the other in the P-rade, and I helped once or twice. There were shout outs and Locomotive Cheers all along the route. For Jay, the party started after the P-rade, first at the Mounts and then back on campus. One year, I walked down Elm Drive with Jay past the Reunion sites for younger sites. Suddenly, I looked around, and Jay was nowhere to seen, until he was spotted dancing joyfully on the dance floor.

 

Transporting the Tigers from Martha's Vineyard to the races, to reunions, and, after the P-rade, to Terhune Orchards, and then back home, was no easy task. Loading the tigers onto the Martha's Vineyard ferry was an annual (or twice annual) and photographed event, as were the trips down I-95 and the Merritt Parkway. There were small wheeled platforms for the P-rade, and Jay had an external car platform for one tiger while the other somehow fit into his car's trunk. It was a precise operation, and Stu and I would often help Jay load and unload at points around Princeton, and others helped at Zastaria. It's easy to forget that after the P-rade, the tigers needed to be hauled back up the campus, I helped several times; the hills are steep, and there are only a few ramps around the numerous stairs. Jay did most of the work himself and was determined that the show must go on. If something broke, Jay could fix it quickly; there's a photo on this page seeing doing just that after a mid-P-rade breakdown.

 

He loved those tigers, and showered them with TLC. One year, he left them overnight in what looked like a well-protected location. In the morning, however, one had been vandalized. Over the coming summer, Jay carefully restored the victim. In the last two years, Jay had been planning a third tiger, "Reading Tiger", hoping to bring it to the 60th. Unfortunately for all, Jay's health kept him and his tigers away from Reunions. The last P-rade was not to be.

 

Another marvel of Jay's life was the late blossoming of his artistic accomplishments. As many of us were slowing down and retiring, Jay was creating, making, and selling his unique, and often whimsical, stick-figure sculptures. His work appeared is several museum shows, several are now on public display on Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod, New York City, and elsewhere. The TLC was not limited to the tigers; Jay was often spotted in Menemsha clearing brush from around the Swordfish Harpooner, putting a Covid mask, or, in season, a Santa Claus hat, on the harpooner himself.

 

Another memory that almost got lost among all the others - Jay's vigorous outdoor activities, nearly to the end. His Facebook page and emails often showed Jay biking around MV, swimming, surfing, and otherwise having a great time. Beyond MV, Jay joined classmates John Edie, Frank MacMurray, Bert Kerstetter, and Rick Bowers on a 2023 trip down the Colorado River.

 

Finally, don't forget that Jay and Marianne were great hosts at his hand-constructed home and the Wild Island Sculpture Garden. Linda and I traveled to MV in 2019 with Lynn and David Williams. Jay showed us around, we visited several displays of his work (including the iconic Swordfish Harpooner), cooked a great lobster dinner, and put us up overnight while Marianne served her fantastic scones for breakfast.

 

Farewell old friend. You were one of a kind, a man of many talents, and an inspiration to your class and all your friends.

 

Sept, 2019. John & Linda Hart, Jay, Lynn & David Williams with "The Jitterbug" at the Field Gallery, West Tisbury, MA

 

Carl Corey:

As far as I know, I didn’t know or even encounter Jay Legeman in my time at Princeton. I might have fleetingly or peripherallly, because I started out in the math science track. Possibly we had a class together in math or physics, but if so, we were never aware of each other individually.

 

One of the real pleasures of participating in this group is getting to know, 60+ years ex post facto, I did not encounter at the Best Old Place of All. Jay was one of them, and I very much enjoyed his humor, his spirit, and what was to me, his unfathomable talent at visual art. His works were, at one in the same time, technically and conceptually very impressive; and pretty darn quirky.

 

I did love his devotion to Princeton and, in particular, to women’s basketball.

 

2023 Down the Colorado: Edie, Lagemann, MacMurray, Kerstetter, Bowers

Doug Hansmann:

My response is largely captured by Carl’s eloquent comment. I never knew Jay while at Princeton but was intrigued by the multiple emails during the past five years featuring photos of his whimsical tiger statues.  I mourn the loss of another unique and multi-talented classmate. 

 

I admire and envy his ability to gather his family around him on the Vineyard; And I send them all the love and support I can muster in what I’m sure is a really, really tough time.

 

Masking the Harpooner

 

Jon Holman:

Here is what I knew about Jay 11 years ago: nothing. I don't think I had met him. I knew he was a sculptor and heard that he had a Ph.D. in math. As I said, nothing.

Since 2021 I've spoken to him many dozens of times and seen him at least once a year. We've exchanged hundreds of emails. I'm not going to say we were close friends but we were super friendly, and we had a lot of stuff to discuss, namely his tigers and their intersection with my role as co-chair of Reunions.

Jay clearly marched to a different drummer, in the good sense of that phrase. He was passionate about his art. He was passionate about having created something really important for Reunions. If you ever saw him at Reunions, and I know many of you did, telling people about his tigers and having his photo taken with them and other Princetonians gave him true joy. Pulling them in the P-rade with his sidekick Stu Steingold was a total high for Jay; he loved how the crowd responded. I'm not sure I knew anyone with a broader and more readily available smile. And then he would dance the night away as if it were Houseparties weekend 1966.

And he approached the whole sculpture process like a math Ph.D. The fact that he turned to art as a career didn't change his extraordinary analytical strengths. He developed relationships in China to get his work fabricated. He used advanced design tools. He experimented with rolling platforms to transport the tigers around. And here is what that meant: loading them onto a platform at his Martha's Vineyard home, taking them on the ferry to the mainland, and driving them from there to Princeton often in rainy weather. How many of us would do that at our ages?

Jay spent his last two or three years working on a third tiger to supplement the Hitchhiking Tiger and the B-ball Tiger. There's a photo at the top of this page. It was ready to come to Princeton when Jay fell ill and couldn't make it to Reunions. This was profoundly sad for him and for me for sure.

 

MORE: Jay's online obituary has still more about Jay that has not been mentioned in these memories.

 

 

 

 

If you have photos, information, or memories that you wish to share, please send them to the '66 Memorial Team (66_MemorialTeam@googlegroups.com). We will add them to this page.