Alice Koh, who exec produced such recent documentaries as Kusama: Infinity and Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable, died suddenly of a heart attack at her home in New York City on January 21, a spokesperson for the Koh family tells Deadline. She was 51.
Koh was born in Los Angeles on December 9, 1970, first segueing into film work in 2015. With the former doc from director Heather Lenz, which premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, she helped spotlight the life and work of the internationally renowned artist Yayoi Kusama. With the latter, from Sasha Waters Freyer, which won the SXSW Film Festival’s Special Jury Award for Documentary Feature, she placed her focus on the iconic American still photographer known for his shots of 1960s New York City.
Koh’s creative partner was her brother, the award-winning film producer David Koh, with whom she hosted a film salon at the Roxy Hotel Cinema for several years.
Koh was also a creative director who from 1994 to 2011 worked in the beauty and fashion industries—first as a designer for Aramis and Prescriptives of Estée Lauder Companies, and then as worldwide creative director for companies including Armani and Victoria’s Secret. During that period, she also served as a graphic designer for Spy magazine, Hearst’s Seventeen, and Conde Nast’s Mademoiselle and Vogue magazines, and taught at Parsons School of Design. She opened a creative consultancy in 2005, and counted Estée Lauder, luxury hotel group COMO Hotels & Resorts and its wellness subsidiary COMO Shambhala among her clients.
Koh was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles. In addition to her brother David, she is survived by her father, Dr. Joon Young Koh; her mother, Minja L. Koh; and her sister, Dr. Susan Koh.
