An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating

art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to

art criticism Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is quest ...

and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogues and on websites. Some of today's art critics use

art blog An art blog is a common type of blog that comments on art. More recently, as with other types of blogs, some art blogs have taken on 'web 2.0' social networking features. Art blogs that adopt this sort of change can develop to become a source ...

s and other online platforms in order to connect with a wider audience and expand debate about

. Differently from art history, there is not an institutionalized training for art critics (with only few exceptions); art critics come from different backgrounds and they may or may not be university trained. Professional art critics are expected to have a keen eye for art and a thorough knowledge of

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

. Typically the art critic views art at

exhibitions An exhibition, in the most general sense, is an organized presentation and display of a selection of items. In practice, exhibitions usually occur within a cultural or educational setting such as a museum, art gallery An art gallery is a roo ...

, galleries,

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these ...

s or

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

s and they can be members of the

International Association of Art Critics The International Association of Art Critics (''Association Internationale des Critiques d’Art'', ''AICA'') was founded in 1950 to revitalize critical discourse, which suffered under Fascism during World War II. Affiliated with UNESCO AICA was ad ...

which has national sections. Very rarely art critics earn their living from writing criticism. The opinions of art critics have the potential to stir debate on art-related topics. Due to this the viewpoints of art critics writing for art publications and newspapers adds to public discourse concerning art and culture.

Art collector A private collection is a privately owned collection of works (usually artworks) or valuable items. In a museum or art gallery context, the term signifies that a certain work is not owned by that institution, but is on loan from an individual ...

s and patrons often rely on the advice of such

critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governmen ...

s as a way to enhance their appreciation of the art they are viewing. Many now-famous and celebrated artists were not recognized by the art critics of their time, often because their art was in a style not yet understood or favored. Conversely, some critics, have become particularly important helping to explain and promote new

art movement An art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a specific period of time, (usually a few months, years or decades) or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defin ...

s –

Roger Fry Roger Eliot Fry (14 December 1866 – 9 September 1934) was an English painter and critic, and a member of the Bloomsbury Group. Establishing his reputation as a scholar of the Old Masters, he became an advocate of more recent developme ...

with the

Post-Impressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

movement,

Lawrence Alloway Lawrence Reginald Alloway (17 September 1926 – 2 January 1990) was an English art critic and curator who worked in the United States from 1961. In the 1950s, he was a leading member of the Independent Group in the UK and in the 1960s was an i ...

with pop art as examples.

Controversies

According to James Elkins there is a distinction between art criticism and art history based on institutional, contextual, and commercial criteria; the history of

is taught in universities, but the practice of art criticism is excluded institutionally from academia. An experience-related article is Agnieszka Gratza. Always according to James Elkins in smaller and developing countries, newspaper art criticism normally serves as art history. James Elkins's perspective portraits his personal link to

and

art historians The history of art focuses on objects made by humans for any number of spiritual, narrative, philosophical, symbolic, conceptual, documentary, decorative, and even functional and other purposes, but with a primary emphasis on its aesthetic visu ...

and in ''What happened to art criticism'' he furthermore highlights the gap between art historians and art critics by suggesting that the first rarely cite the second as a source and that the second miss an academic discipline to refer to.

Gallery

File:Denisdiderot.jpg,

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific ar ...

, ''Portrait of

Denis Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promine ...

,'' 1769,

Louvre The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. His

was highly influential. His ''Essais sur la peinture'' was described by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

, as "a magnificent work, which speaks even more helpfully to the poet than to the painter, though to the painter too it is as a blazing torch." Diderot's favorite painter was

Jean-Baptiste Greuze Jean-Baptiste Greuze (, 21 August 1725 – 4 March 1805) was a French painter of portraits, genre scenes, and history painting. Biography Early life Greuze was born at Tournus, a market town in Burgundy. He is generally said to have formed h ...

. File:John Neal by Sarah Miriam Peale, c. 1823, oil on canvas - Portland Museum of Art - Portland, Maine - DSC04059.jpg, Portrait of John Neal by

Sarah Miriam Peale Sarah Miriam Peale (May 19, 1800 – February 4, 1885) was an American portrait painter, considered the first American woman to succeed as a professional artist. One of a family of artists of whom her uncle Charles Willson Peale was the most illu ...

, 1823. Neal is regarded as the first American art critic and was also an influential writer and literary critic. File:Charles Baudelaire 1855 Nadar.jpg,

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poetry, French poet who also produced notable work as an essayist and art critic. His poems exhibit mastery in the handling of rhyme and rhythm, contain an exoticis ...

1855, Photo by

Nadar Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910), known by the pseudonym Nadar, was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloon (aircraft), balloonist, and proponent of Aircraft#Heavier-than-air – aerodynes, h ...

. Baudelaire is associated with the

Decadent movement The Decadent movement (Fr. ''décadence'', “decay”) was a late-19th-century artistic and literary movement, centered in Western Europe, that followed an aesthetic ideology of excess and artificiality. The Decadent movement first flourished ...

. His book of poetry ''

Les Fleurs du mal ''Les Fleurs du mal'' (; en, The Flowers of Evil, italic=yes) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. ''Les Fleurs du mal'' includes nearly all Baudelaire's poetry, written from 1840 until his death in August 1867. First publish ...

'' is acknowledged as a classic of

French literature French literature () generally speaking, is literature written in the French language, particularly by citizens of France; it may also refer to literature written by people living in France who speak traditional languages of France other than Fr ...

File:Zacharie Astruc.JPG,

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Born ...

, ''Portrait of

Zacharie Astruc Zacharie Astruc (23 February 1833 in Angers – 24 May 1907 in Paris) was a French sculptor, painter, poet, and art critic. He was an important figure in the cultural life of France in the second half of the 19th century, and participated ...

'' 1866,

Kunsthalle Bremen The Kunsthalle Bremen is an art museum in Bremen, Germany. It is located close to the Bremen Old Town on the "Culture Mile" (german: Kulturmeile). The Kunsthalle was built in 1849, enlarged in 1902 by architect Eduard Gildemeister, and expanded ...

. He was a strong defender of

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

, and was one of the first to recognize the talent of

. He also defended

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...

James McNeill Whistler James Abbott McNeill Whistler (; July 10, 1834July 17, 1903) was an American painter active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the United Kingdom. He eschewed sentimentality and moral allusion in painting and was a leading pr ...

Carolus-Duran Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (Lille 4 July 1837 – 17 February 1917 Paris), was a French painter and art instructor. He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France. Biograph ...

, Fantin-Latour, and

Alphonse Legros Alphonse Legros (8 May 1837 – 8 December 1911) was a French, later British, painter, etcher, sculptor, and medallist. He moved to London in 1863 and later took British citizenship. He was important as a teacher in the British etching rev ...

. File:Manet, Edouard - Portrait of Emile Zola.jpg,

, ''Portrait of

Émile Zola Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola (, also , ; 2 April 184029 September 1902) was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of ...

'', 1868,

Musée d'Orsay The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art ...

. Émile Zola (1840-1902) was an influential French

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

, and art critic. He was a major figure in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer

Alfred Dreyfus Alfred Dreyfus ( , also , ; 9 October 1859 – 12 July 1935) was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. ...

. File:Aurier, Albert, BNF Gallica.jpg,

Albert Aurier Gabriel-Albert Aurier (5 May 1865 – 5 October 1892) was a French poet, art critic and painter, associated with the Symbolist movement. Career The son of a notary born in Châteauroux, Indre, Aurier went to Paris in 1883 to study law, but hi ...

, c. 1890, Wrote about

Vincent van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionism, Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2 ...

, and

Paul Gauguin Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...

. File:Signac - Portrait de Félix Fénéon.jpg,

Paul Signac Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style. Biography Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. H ...

, ''

Félix Fénéon Félix Fénéon (; 22 June 1861 – 29 February 1944) was a French art critic, gallery director, writer and anarchist during the late 19th century and early 20th century. He coined the term ''Neo-Impressionism'' in 1886 to identify a group of a ...

,'' 1890. A French

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

and art critic in Paris during the late 1800s. He coined the term "

Neo-impressionism Neo-Impressionism is a term coined by French art critic Félix Fénéon in 1886 to describe an art movement founded by Georges Seurat. Seurat's most renowned masterpiece, ''A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte'', marked the beginnin ...

" in 1886. File:Clive Bell.jpg, Portrait of

Clive Bell Arthur Clive Heward Bell (16 September 1881 – 17 September 1964) was an English art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group. He developed the art theory known as significant form. Biography Origins Bell was born in East ...

(1881-1964), by

(1924 c.) File:Guillaume Apollinaire 1914.jpg,

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

(1880–1918), 1914, French poet, writer and art critic he is credited with coining the word

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

File:Modigliani, Picasso and André Salmon.jpg,

André Salmon André Salmon (4 October 1881, Paris – 12 March 1969, Sanary-sur-Mer) was a French poet, art critic and writer. He was one of the early defenders of Cubism, with Guillaume Apollinaire and Maurice Raynal. Biography André Salmon was born in P ...

, Modigliani, and

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

in Montparnasse (1916), photographed by

Jean Cocteau Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the su ...

File:Roger Fry self-portrait.jpg,

Self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

,'' 1928. He was described by

Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...

as "incomparably the greatest influence on taste since Ruskin... In so far as taste can be changed by one man, it was changed by Roger Fry". File:Leo Stein.jpg,

Leo Stein Leo Stein (May 11, 1872 – July 29, 1947) was an American art collector and critic. He was born in Allegheny City (now in Pittsburgh), the older brother of Gertrude Stein. He became an influential promoter of 20th-century paintings. Education ...

(1872–1947), art collector/critic, elder brother of

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

. Photo by Carl Van Vechten, November 9, 1937 File:Frank O'Hara (photo portrait).jpg,

Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

(1926-1966),
Refurbished Reputation for a Nervy Painter.

Larry Rivers Larry Rivers (born Yitzroch Loiza Grossberg) (1923 – 2002) was an American artist, musician, filmmaker, and occasional actor. Considered by many scholars to be the "Godfather" and "Grandfather" of Pop art, he was one of the first artists ...

, delivered one of the eulogies, along with

Bill Berkson William Craig Berkson (August 30, 1939 – June 16, 2016) was an American poet, critic, and teacher who was active in the art and literary worlds from his early twenties on. Early life and education Born in New York City on August 30, 1939, Bil ...

, Edwin Denby, and René d'Harnoncourt. File:Arthur Danto, 2012.jpg,

Arthur Danto Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic, philosopher, and professor at Columbia University. He was best known for having been a long-time art critic for ''The Nation'' and for his work in philosophi ...

, (1924-2013), Danto laid the groundwork for an institutional definition of artThis theory has been described as an "influential theory about the nature of art", according t
Philosophy Now, November 2013
/ref> File:John Berger-2009 (6).jpg,

John Berger John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism ''Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the ...

, (1926-2017),

Notable art critics

* Christopher Allen *

Michael Baxandall Michael David Kighley Baxandall, FBA (18 August 1933 – 12 August 2008) was a British art historian and a professor emeritus of Art History at the University of California, Berkeley. He taught at the Warburg Institute, University of London, and ...

Sister Wendy Beckett Wendy Mary Beckett (25 February 1930 – 26 December 2018), better known as Sister Wendy, was a British religious sister and art historian who became known internationally during the 1990s when she presented a series of BBC television documenta ...

Andrew Berardini Andrew Berardini (born 1982) is an American writer known for his work as a visual art critic and curator in Los Angeles. Described as "the most elegant of all art critic cowboys", Berardini works primarily between genres, which he describes as "q ...

Bernard Berenson Bernard Berenson (June 26, 1865 – October 6, 1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book ''The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'' was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large h ...

Vasily Botkin Vasily Petrovich Botkin (russian: link=no, Васи́лий Петро́вич Бо́ткин; – ) was a Russian essayist, literary, art and music critic, translator and publicist. Early life Vasily was born in Moscow, the son of Alexandra ...

John Canaday John Edwin Canaday (February 1, 1907 – July 19, 1985) was a leading American art critic, author and art historian. Early life and education John Canaday was born in Fort Scott, Kansas, to Franklin and Agnes F. (Musson) Canaday. His family m ...

Champfleury Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson (17 September 1821, in Laon, Aisne – 6 December 1889, in Sèvres), who wrote under the name Champfleury (), was a French art critic and novelist, a prominent supporter of the Realist movement in painting ...

* T. J. Clark * Robert Coates *

Clarence Cook Clarence Chatham Cook (September 8, 1828 – June 2, 1900) was a 19th-century American author and art critic. Born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, Cook graduated from Harvard in 1849 and worked as a teacher. Between 1863 and 1869, Cook wrote a serie ...

* Douglas Cooper *

Royal Cortissoz Royal Cortissoz (; February 10, 1869 – October 17, 1948) was an American art historian and, from 1891 until his death, the art critic for the '' New York Herald Tribune''. During his tenure at the newspaper, he consistently championed tradit ...

Thomas Craven Thomas Craven (January 6, 1888 – February 27, 1969) was an American author, critic and lecturer, who promoted the work of American Regionalist painters, Thomas Hart Benton, John Steuart Curry and Grant Wood, among others. He was known for h ...

G. Roger Denson G. Roger Denson (born 1956) is an American journalist, cultural and art critic, theoretician, novelist, and curator. He is a regular contributor to ''The Huffington Post'', his writings have also appeared in such international publications as '' Ar ...

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pat ...

John Elderfield John Elderfield (born 25 April 1943) was Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 2003 to 2008.''Who’s Who 2011'', A&C Black, 2011 He served as the Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Distinguished Curator a ...

* James Elkins *

Hal Foster Harold Rudolf Foster, FRSA (August 16, 1892 – July 25, 1982) was a Canadian-American comic strip artist and writer best known as the creator of the comic strip ''Prince Valiant''. His drawing style is noted for its high level of draftsmanship a ...

* Peter Frank *

Michael Fried Michael Martin Fried (born April 12, 1939 in New York City) is a modernist art critic and art historian. He studied at Princeton University and Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford. He is the J.R. Herbert Boone Pr ...

B. H. Friedman Bernard Harper Friedman (July 27, 1926 – January 4, 2011), better known by his initials, "B. H.," or known as Bob to his friends was an American author and art critic who wrote biographies of Jackson Pollock and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, a ...

Peter Fuller Peter Michael Fuller (31 August 1947 – 28 April 1990) was a British art critic and magazine editor. Life Fuller was born in Damascus, Syria, and educated at Epsom College and Peterhouse, Cambridge.Dennis Griffiths ''The Encyclopedia of th ...

Théophile Gautier Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier ( , ; 30 August 1811 – 23 October 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and rem ...

Stepan Gedeonov Stepan Alexandrovich Gedeonov (russian: Степан Александрович Гедеонов, 13 June 1816, Saint Petersburg, Imperial Russia — 17 September 1878, Saint Petersburg, Imperial Russia) was a Russian art scholar, playwright, c ...

Gustave Geffroy Gustave Geffroy (1 June 1855 – 4 April 1926) was a French journalist, art critic, historian and novelist. He was one of the ten founding members of the literary organisation Académie Goncourt in 1900. Geffroy is noted as one of the first histo ...

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formal ...

Dmitry Grigorovich Dmitry Vasilyevich Grigorovich (russian: Дми́трий Васи́льевич Григоро́вич) ( – ) was a Russian writer, best known for his first two novels, '' The Village'' and '' Anton Goremyka'', and lauded as the first author ...

Boris Groys Boris Efimovich Groys (born 19 March 1947) is an art critic, media theorist, and philosopher. He is currently a global distinguished professor of Russian and Slavic studies at New York University and senior research fellow at the Karlsruhe Univer ...

* Ichirō Hariu *

Dave Hickey David Hickey (December 5, 1938 – November 12, 2021) was an American art critic who wrote for many American publications including ''Rolling Stone'', ''ARTnews'', '' Art in America'', ''Artforum'', '' Harper's Magazine'', and '' Vanity Fair''. ...

* Robert Hughes * Édouard Jaguer *

Michael Kimmelman Michael Kimmelman (born May 8, 1958) is the architecture critic for ''The New York Times'' and has written about public housing, public space, landscape architecture, community development and equity, infrastructure and urban design. He has report ...

* *

Hilton Kramer Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and essayist. Biography Early life Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a bachelor's degree in English; Col ...

Rosalind E. Krauss Rosalind Epstein Krauss (born November 30, 1941) is an American art critic, art theorist and a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Krauss is known for her scholarship in 20th-century painting, sculpture and photography. As a critic ...

R. Siva Kumar Raman Siva Kumar (born 3 December 1956), known as R. Siva Kumar, is an Indian contemporary art historian, art critic, and curator. His major research has been in the area of early Indian modernism with special focus on the Santiniketan Schoo ...

Donald Kuspit Donald Kuspit (born March 26, 1935) is an American art critic and poet, known for his practice of psychoanalytic art criticism. He has published on the subjects of avant-garde aesthetics, postmodernism, modern art, and conceptual art. Education ...

* Julien Leclercq *

Louis Leroy Louis Leroy (1812 - 1885) was a French 19th-century printmaker, painter, and playwright. Biography He is remembered as the journalist and art critic for the French satirical newspaper ''Le Charivari'', who coined the term "impressionists" to ...

Lucy R. Lippard Lucy Rowland Lippard (born April 14, 1937) is an American writer, art critic, activist, and curator. Lippard was among the first writers to argue for the " dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. ...

Giovanni Lista Giovanni Lista is an Italian art historian and art critic born in Italy on February 13, 1943, at Castiglione del Lago (Perugia) and resides in Paris. He is a specialist in the artistic cultural scene of the 1920s, particularly in Futurism. Biogra ...

* George Loukomski * Sergey Makovsky *

Nancy Marmer Nancy Marmer is a writer, art critic and editor who lives in New York City. From 1979 through 1998, Marmer was an editor at Art in America magazine—first as a senior and executive editor (1979-1982), then as managing editor and book review editor ...

Camille Mauclair Séverin Faust (December 29, 1872, Paris – April 23, 1945), better known by his pseudonym Camille Mauclair, was a French poet, novelist, biographer, travel writer, and art critic. Background Mauclair was a great admirer of Stéphane Mallarmé ...

Octave Mirbeau Octave Mirbeau (16 February 1848 – 16 February 1917) was a French novelist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, journalist and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, whilst still appealing to the ...

Robert C. Morgan Robert C. Morgan (born 1943) is an American art critic, art historian, curator, poet, and artist. Biography Robert C. Morgan received his M.F.A. in sculpture from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1975 and his Ph.D. in art education f ...

Suzanne Muchnic Suzanne Muchnic (born 1940) is an art writer who was a staff art reporter and art critic at the ''Los Angeles Times'' for 31 years. She has also written books on artists, collectors, and museums. Academic career Muchnic is a graduate of Scripp ...

* John Neal *

Linda Nochlin Linda Nochlin (''née'' Weinberg; January 30, 1931 – October 29, 2017) was an American art historian, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emerita of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and writer. As a prominent feminist art h ...

Saul Ostrow Saul Ostrow is an American art critic and art curator. In 1972 Ostrow received his MFA in art from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He has taught at Pratt Institute, Cleveland Institute of Art, Syracuse University, Parsons The New School ...

Jed Perl Jed Perl (born 1951) is an American art critic and author in New York City. He was a longtime staff of ''The New Republic''. Career Jed Perl initially trained as a painter. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia College and also studied at th ...

Adrian Prakhov Adrian Victorovich Prakhov (russian: Адриан Викторович Прахов; 16 March 1846, Mstislavl, Russian Empire - 14 May 1916, Yalta, Russian Empire) was a Russians, Russian art critic, archaeologist and art historian. Biography ...

Griselda Pollock Griselda Frances Sinclair Pollock''The International Who's Who of Women''; 3rd ed.; ed. Elizabeth Sleeman, Europa Publications, 2002, p. 453 (born 11 March 1949) is an art historian and cultural analyst of international, postcolonial feminist stud ...

Nikolay Punin Nikolay Nikolayevich Punin (russian: link=no, Никола́й Никола́евич Пу́нин; – August 21, 1953) was a Russian art scholar and writer. He edited several magazines, such as ''Izobrazitelnoye Iskusstvo'' among others, and w ...

Arlene Raven Arlene Raven (Arlene Rubin: July 12, 1944, Baltimore, Maryland – August 1, 2006, Brooklyn, New York) was a feminist art historian, author, critic, educator, and curator. Raven was a co-founder of numerous feminist art organizations in Los ...

Herbert Read Sir Herbert Edward Read, (; 4 December 1893 – 12 June 1968) was an English art historian, poet, literary critic and philosopher, best known for numerous books on art, which included influential volumes on the role of art in education. Read ...

Pierre Restany Pierre Restany (24 June 1930 – 29 May 2003), was an internationally known French art critic and cultural philosopher. Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrénées-Orientales, and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On returning ...

John Rewald John Rewald (May 12, 1912 – February 2, 1994) was an American academic, author and art historian. He was known as a scholar of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Cézanne, Renoir, Pissarro, Seurat, and other French painters of the late 19th ce ...

Rainer Maria Rilke René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), shortened to Rainer Maria Rilke (), was an Austrian poet and novelist. He has been acclaimed as an idiosyncratic and expressive poet, and is widely recogni ...

* Daniel Robbins *

Barbara Rose Barbara Ellen Rose (June 11, 1936December 25, 2020) was an American art historian, art critic, curator and college professor. Rose's criticism focused on 20th-century American art, particularly minimalism and abstract expressionism, as well as S ...

Harold Rosenberg Harold Rosenberg (February 2, 1906 – July 11, 1978) was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. Rosenberg is best known for h ...

Robert Rosenblum Robert Rosenblum (July 24, 1927 – December 6, 2006) was an American art historian and curator known for his influential and often irreverent scholarship on European and American art of the mid-eighteenth to 20th centuries. Biography Rosenblum wa ...

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...

* John Russell *

Frank Rutter Francis Vane Phipson Rutter (17 February 1876 – 18 April 1937)"Rutter, Frank V. P.", ''Who Was Who'', A & C Black, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007. Retrieved froukwhoswho8 August 2008. was a British art critic, curat ...

Jerry Saltz Jerry Saltz (born February 19, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for '' New York'' magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for ''The Village Voice'', he received the Pu ...

Irving Sandler Irving Sandler (July 22, 1925 – June 2, 2018) was an American art critic, art historian, and educator. He provided numerous first hand accounts of American art, beginning with abstract expressionism in the 1950s. He also managed the Tanager Ga ...

Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...

Peter Schjeldahl Peter Charles Schjeldahl (; March 20, 1942 – October 21, 2022) was an American art critic, poet, and educator. He was noted for being the head art critic at ''The New Yorker'', having earlier written for ''The Village Voice'', ''ARTnews'', and ...

Brian Sewell Brian Alfred Christopher Bushell Sewell (; 15 July 1931 – 19 September 2015) was an English art critic. He wrote for the ''Evening Standard'' and had an acerbic view of conceptual art and the Turner Prize. ''The Guardian'' described him as " ...

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied at ...

* Rafael Squirru *

Vladimir Stasov Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov (also Stassov; rus, Влади́мир Васи́льевич Ста́сов; 14 January Adoption_of_the_Gregorian_calendar#Adoption_in_Eastern_Europe.html" ;"title="/nowiki> O.S._2_January.html" ;"title="Adoption of ...

Leo Steinberg Leo Steinberg (July 9, 1920 – March 13, 2011) was a Russian-born American art critic and art historian. Life Steinberg was born in Moscow, Russian SFSR, the son of Isaac Nachman Steinberg, a Jewish lawyer and Socialist Revolutionary Party politi ...

Aleksey Suvorin Aleksei Sergeyevich Suvorin (Russian: Алексей Сергеевич Суворин, 11 September 1834, Korshevo, Voronezh Governorate – 11 August 1912, Tsarskoye Selo) was a Russian newspaper and book publisher and journalist whose publ ...

Michel Tapié Michel Tapié (full name: Michel Tapié de Céleyran; 26 February 1909 – 30 July 1987) was a French art critic, curator, and collector. He was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of "tachisme", a French style of abstract paintin ...

Théophile Thoré-Bürger Étienne-Joseph-Théophile Thoré (better known as Théophile Thoré-Bürger) (23 June 1807 – 30 April 1869) was a French journalist and art critic. He is best known today for rediscovering the work of painter Johannes Vermeer and several o ...

* Éric Troncy *

Tristan Tzara Tristan Tzara (; ; born Samuel or Samy Rosenstock, also known as S. Samyro; – 25 December 1963) was a Romanian and French avant-garde poet, essayist and performance artist. Also active as a journalist, playwright, literary and art critic, comp ...

Kirk Varnedoe John Kirk Train Varnedoe (January 18, 1946 – August 14, 2003) was an American art historian, the Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art from 1988 to 2001, Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advance ...

Louis Vauxcelles Louis Vauxcelles (born Louis Meyer; 1 January 187021 July 1943) was a French art critic. He is credited with coining the terms '' Fauvism'' (1905) and ''Cubism'' (1908). He used several pseudonyms in various publications: Pinturrichio, Vasari, ...

* Boris Vipper *

Karen Wilkin Karen Wilkin (born 1940) is a New York-based independent curator and art critic specializing in 20th-century modernism. Biography Educated at Barnard College (1962) and Columbia University, she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Fulbri ...

Ticio Escobar Ticio Escobar (born February 9, 1947) is a Paraguayan lawyer, academic, author, museum director, and former Minister of Culture of Paraguay. He has championed the rights of Indigenous peoples of Paraguay, writing about and curating shows on the t ...

References

External links

*
Good audio version of symposium on contemporary (2007) art criticism entitled "Empathy and Criticality," sponsored by the Frieze Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Art Critic

Controversies

Gallery

Notable art critics

See also

References

External links