Maxine Block, a patron of the arts and smiling matriarch of the Pittsburgh publishing family, died yesterday in Sarasota, Fla. She had just turned 88.

With her husband of six decades, the late William Block Sr., Mrs. Block took a keen interest in music and visual arts. Their appreciation for contemporary art glass was instrumental in the founding of the Pittsburgh Glass Center, and they gave generously of their collection to museums in Pittsburgh and Toledo, Ohio.

Mrs. Block also was an early member of the Women's Committee of the Carnegie Museum of Art and served as president of Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania.

Like her husband, Mrs. Block was an inveterate traveler, taking in dozens of cities on five continents in the course of a marriage in which they raised four children. She was never a public figure like her husband, who died June 20, 2005, but enjoyed being at his side whether receiving briefings for American newspaper officials in an exotic locale, supporting artists and cultural institutions, or hosting social functions at an expansive home they once had on Warwick Terrace in Squirrel Hill.

		Guest Book Sign a a guest book for Maxine Block

Privately, she could be the more vivacious of the two. She did not involve herself, however, in Mr. Block's business dealings at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he was the longtime publisher.

"She took on the role of executive wife," said a daughter, Barbara Block Burney, of Highland Park. "She was raised as an entertainer, so she knew how to light up a room."

In his memoirs, Mr. Block spoke of the long-growing partnership between the two.

"Maxine's sense of humor, and our mutual interest in a lot of things -- music, design, art, theater and movies -- have helped to strengthen the bonds," he wrote.

Mrs. Block was born March 24, 1920, in Detroit, the oldest daughter of Aubrey and Anne Horton. Aubrey Horton worked in the auto industry and later started his own moving van company. The family moved to upstate New York, where Mrs. Block and her two sisters took music lessons and formed a band.

By the time Mrs. Block was 10, at the beginning of the Great Depression, she and her sisters, Madelon and Shirley, had won several amateur talent contests. They played weekend engagements at theaters and hotels throughout her school years before Mrs. Block joined a larger female band on the eve of World War II.

She met her husband-to-be in 1944, when the young World War II lieutenant stationed in California stopped into the Mission Inn in Riverside, Calif., to hear some music.

"There was a very beautiful girl playing the saxophone in an all-girl band," Mr. Block recalled.

Within months of their meeting, the couple became engaged, then slipped off to Las Vegas to be married after Mr. Block managed a rare weekend pass. The young couple headed east so Mr. Block could study Japanese in preparation for an assignment in the post-war occupation, then returned to California, where Mrs. Block stayed to await her husband's return from overseas. Their reunion in the summer of 1946 was followed by a move to Pittsburgh.

Over the next 60 years, while living in Oakmont, Squirrel Hill, Fox Chapel and Oakland, Mrs. Block would be a nurturing, committed presence in her adopted home. It wasn't love at first sight, however. From Carmel, Calif., the young couple came to a city whose steel mills brought prosperity at the cost of a constant pall of pollution.

In his memoirs, Mr. Block recalled that on their first day in Pittsburgh, with their infant son, Bill Jr., they moved into a suite in the old Schenley Hotel in Oakland, downwind of the belching Jones & Laughlin smokestacks along the Monongahela River.

In that era before air conditioning was commonplace, the windows were wide open as they ordered breakfast for their 22-month-old son. In moments, a film of soot descended on the surface of the infant's glass of milk.

Mr. Block recalled his bride's horrified recoil.

"My God, do we have to live here?'' she said.

"This is where the job is," he responded.

And this was where their lives would be through eventful decades when the Blocks raised four children and became devoted contributors to the city that once gave them such pause.

While their Pittsburgh roots deepened, they continued to roam the world. On the first of many trips abroad together, in 1950, they toured a Europe still recovering from the ravages of World War II.

In subsequent years, their passports would be stamped in such places as Hong Kong, Munich, Jerusalem, Kyoto, New Delhi, Zurich, Oslo, Canberra, Athens, Florence, Nairobi, Madrid, Amsterdam, Cairo and Berlin, among others. In 1954, they were conducted on a moonlit tour of Rome by the U.S. ambassador, Clare Boothe Luce, the author and wife of the publishing magnate Henry Luce.

In Pittsburgh, the Blocks continued their involvement in music, with particular devotion to the Pittsburgh Symphony, where Mr. Block was a long-serving board member. The Blocks helped support the education of Raymond Saunders, a Pittsburgh native who became a noted abstract artist after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University, and later nurtured contemporary glass artists in what became their favorite art form.

"They were a really interesting couple that really shared looking at art, and loving artists, and meeting artists and adopting them," said Kathleen Mulcahy, an Oakdale glass artist along with her husband, Ron Desmett. The couple won the Blocks' key backing for creation of the Pittsburgh Glass Center in 2001.

"It was so much fun going into where Max lives, because she not only liked to collect work but was an exquisite home designer," Ms. Mulcahy said. "When you entered their house, it was a place where people loved life, loved art, and loved discussions about politics and ideas.''

Eliese Cutler, 90, came to know Mrs. Block through their years of work together on the Planned Parenthood board.

"She was quite a lady," said Ms. Cutler, who lives in Point Breeze. "She had her own opinions, and she fought for what she believed in. And anyone who worked with Planned Parenthood has to go through quite a lot of controversy. And she was a big supporter."

The Blocks, who in later years divided time between Pittsburgh and a second residence in Sarasota, Fla., donated more than 60 works to the Carnegie Museum of Art and its Toledo counterpart.

Edith Fisher, a longtime friend from Squirrel Hill, said that she and her husband, James, often socialized with the Blocks and always enjoyed their times with them.

"It's hard to separate the two of them. It was one of the loveliest, happiest marriages I've ever known. They were just so close, it was a joy to be with the both of them," she said.

Mrs. Block is survived by Mrs. Burney and three other children, William Jr., of Squirrel Hill, chairman emeritus of Block Communications; Karen Johnese, of Highland Park, former executive director of the Pittsburgh Glass Center; and Donald, of O'Hara, executive director of the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council; and a sister, Madelon German of Spring Valley, Calif. Also surviving are eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

A private burial will be held in Pittsburgh. The family will receive friends at a date to be determined.

The family suggests memorial contributions to Planned Parenthood of Western Pennsylvania, 933 Liberty Ave., Pittsburgh, 15222.