Charles Desmarais (born April 21, 1949) is the Art Critic for the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and Michael H. de Young. The ...

''. A native of the

Bronx The Bronx () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the state of New York. It is south of Westchester County; north and east of the New York City borough of Manhattan, across the Harlem River; and north of the New Y ...

, Desmarais earned a bachelor's and master's degree from the State University of New York, Buffalo, and was a 1983 participant in the Museum Management Institute (later the Getty Leadership Institute program of the

Getty Foundation The Getty Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California at the Getty Center, awards grants for "the understanding and preservation of the visual arts".Getty FoundationAbout the Foundation. Retrieved September 18, 2008. In the past, it funded the ...

). In the 1980s, Desmarais directed the

California Museum of Photography The UCR/California Museum of Photography (CMP) is an off-campus institution and department of the UCR College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at University of California, Riverside, the Uni ...

at the

University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside (UCR or UC Riverside) is a public land-grant research university in Riverside, California. It is one of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The main campus sits on in a suburban distr ...

. He was director of the

Laguna Art Museum The Laguna Art Museum (LAM) is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California, on Pacific Coast Highway. LAM exclusively features California art and is the oldest cultural institution in the area. It has been known as the Laguna Beach Art Associati ...

, in

Laguna Beach Laguna Beach (; ''Laguna'', Spanish for "Lagoon") is a seaside resort city located in southern Orange County, California, in the United States. It is known for its mild year-round climate, scenic coves, environmental preservation efforts, and a ...

, California from 1988 to 1994. He then served as director of the

Contemporary Arts Center The Contemporary Arts Center (CAC) is a contemporary art museum in Cincinnati, Ohio and one of the first contemporary art institutions in the United States. The CAC is a non-collecting museum that focuses on new developments in painting, sculptur ...

in Cincinnati from 1995 until January 2004. From 2005 to 2011, he was deputy director for art at the Brooklyn Museum, where he oversaw ten curatorial departments, as well as the museum’s education, exhibitions, conservation and library activities. In 2011 he was appointed president of the San Francisco Art Institute, a position he left in October 2015. Since 1985, he has been married to Kitty Morgan, former editor-in-chief of '' Sunset'' magazine and now Assistant Managing Editor - Lifestyle Content Director of the ''San Francisco Chronicle''.

Exhibitions and books by Desmarais

Desmarais has curated exhibitions on various artists, photographers and architects. His books and exhibition catalogues include: *''Roger Mertin: Records 1976-78'' (1978) *''Michael Bishop'' (1979) *''The Portrait Extended'' (1980) *''Why I Got into TV and Other Stories: The Art of Ilene Segalove'' (1990) *''Proof: Los Angeles Art and the Photograph, 1960-1980'' (1992) *''Humongolous: Sculpture and Other Works by Tim Hawkinson'' (1996) *''Jim Dine Photographs'' (1999) *''Stephan Balkenhol'' (2000) *''Nothing Compared to This: Ambient, Incidental and New Minimal Tendencies in Current Art'' (2004) * ith Markus Dochantschi''Zaha Hadid: Space for Art'' (2005)

Awards

*1979: Art Critics Fellowship by the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

. *2017: Rabkin Prize for Visual Arts Journalism''.''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Desmarais, Charles American art curators American art historians Living people Heads of universities and colleges in the United States University at Buffalo alumni 1949 births People from the Bronx Historians from New York (state)