Roberto Echaurren Matta, 91, a Chilean master of surrealist painting and sculpture, died Saturday in a hospital in Civitavecchia, near the Tuscan town of Tarquinia, where he lived in a convent.

Chilean President Ricardo Lagos said Mr. Matta's death "represents the passing of one of the last major figures of painting in the 20th century."

Mr. Matta's images of cosmic creation were true to surrealist ideals, although his imaginative use of color and sense of humor made his work difficult to classify. He created the "accident" of spilled pigment in his canvases.

Eric S. Tachau, 78, principal author of Kentucky's no-fault automobile insurance law and an early civil rights activist, died Saturday in Louisville after developing complications from colon cancer.

In the 1950s, Mr. Tachau helped to secure a new homeowners insurance policy for Andrew and Charlotte Wade, a black couple who had moved to an all-white town, after violent racial protests prompted the original insurer to back out.

The new policy prevented foreclosure, though the property was eventually bombed.

In 1964, Mr. Tachau and others helped organize a march that helped lead to the passage of Kentucky's Civil Rights Act.

In the 1970s, he led the fight for passage of a no-fault insurance law that made it possible for motorists to get coverage that paid them for medical expenses, lost wages and certain other losses without having to prove fault.

Dr. Morris N. Young, 93, an eye doctor who was a leading collector of books on magic, died Nov. 13 in Norwich, Conn.

Dr. Young, an admirer of legendary magician Harry Houdini, built a collection of books on subjects including ventriloquism, fortune telling and spiritualism.

In 1955, Dr. Young and a friend gave a collection of 20,000 books, and other items involving magic, to the Library of Congress. He believed his collection of books on mnemonics, which he donated to the University of San Marino in Italy, was among the world's largest.