Karen Wilkin (born 1940) is a New York-based independent curator and

art critic An art critic is a person who is specialized in analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating art. Their written critiques or reviews contribute to art criticism and they are published in newspapers, magazines, books, exhibition brochures, and catalogue ...

specializing in 20th-century

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

Biography

Educated at

Barnard College Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...

(1962) and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

, she was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a

Fulbright Scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, to Rome. Wilkin has organized numerous exhibitions internationally and is the author of monographs on Stuart Davis, David Smith,

Anthony Caro Sir Anthony Alfred Caro (8 March 192423 October 2013) was an English abstract sculptor whose work is characterised by assemblages of metal using ' found' industrial objects. His style was of the modernist school, having worked with Henry Moor ...

Kenneth Noland Kenneth Noland (April 10, 1924 – January 5, 2010) was an American painter. He was one of the best-known American color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was though ...

Helen Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...

, and

Hans Hofmann Hans Hofmann (March 21, 1880 – February 17, 1966) was a German-born American painter, renowned as both an artist and teacher. His career spanned two generations and two continents, and is considered to have both preceded and influenced Abstrac ...

. Her recent projects include a Hofmann retrospective for the Naples Art Museum,

Naples, Florida Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the historical city (i.e. in the immediate vicinity of downtown Naples) was 19,115. Naples is a principal city of the Naples-Marco Island, Flori ...

, and, with William C. Agee, the introductory essays for the Stuart Davis Catalogue Raisonné. Wilkin met

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 ...

in the early 1970s. When the

Portland Art Museum The Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon, United States, was founded in 1892, making it one of the oldest art museums on the West Coast and seventh oldest in the US. Upon completion of the most recent renovations, the Portland Art Museum becam ...

, Oregon, acquired the critic’s collection, she was asked to contribute the main essay to the catalogue, because of her long friendship with Greenberg and her expertise on his writings, his studio practices, and the artists with whom he was closely associated. Recently, she was curator of the Syracuse exhibition “Clement Greenberg: Then and Now” that examines some of the Syracuse painters influenced by Greenberg. In 2009 Wilkin curated a posthumous retrospective of the painter

Cleve Gray Cleve Gray (September 22, 1918 – December 8, 2004) was an American Abstract expressionist painter, who was also associated with Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction. Early life and education Gray was born Cleve Ginsberg: the family ...

at the

Boca Raton Museum of Art Founded by artists, the Boca Raton Museum of Art was established in 1950 as the Art Guild of Boca Raton. The organization has grown to encompass an Art School, Guild, Store, and Museum with permanent collections of contemporary art, photography, ...

. Wilkin teaches in the Master of Fine Arts program of the

New York Studio School The New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture at 8 West 8th Street, in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City, New York State is an art school formed in 1963 by a group of students and their teacher, Mercedes Matter, all of ...

. She is the Contributing Editor for

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 ...

for the ''Hudson Review'' and a regular contributor to ''

The New Criterion ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'', ''

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It i ...

'', and the ''

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

''.

Select publications

* 2007 - ''The Paintings of Cynthia Polsky ''. Karen Wilkin and John Yau. Published: Phillip Wilson Publishers; 1 edition (February 15, 2007). , * 2007 - ''Color As Field:American Painting, 1950-1975.'' Karen Wilkin and Carl Belz. Published: Yale University Press; 1 edition (November 29, 2007). , * 2007 - '' Stuart Davis: A Catalogue Raisonné'' (3 volumes) by William Agee (Editor), Karen Wilkin (Editor), Ani Boyajian, Mark Rutkoski () * 2005 - ''

: The Nature of Color'' by Kenneth Noland (Author), Alison De Lima Greene (Author), Karen Wilkin (Author) () * 2003 - ''

'' () * 2001 - ''

: A Critic's Collection'' by Bruce Guenther, Karen Wilkin (Editor) () * 2000 - '' David Smith: Two into Three Dimensions'' () * 1999 - '' Stuart Davis in Gloucester'' () * 1998 - ''

Isaac Witkin Isaac Witkin (10 May 1936 – 23 April 2006) was an internationally renowned modern sculptor born in Johannesburg, South Africa. Witkin entered Saint Martin's School of Art in London in 1957 and studied under Sir Anthony Caro and alongside artist ...

'' () * 1998 - ''

Giorgio Morandi Giorgio Morandi (July 20, 1890 – June 18, 1964) was an Italian painter and printmaker who specialized in still life. His paintings are noted for their tonal subtlety in depicting simple subjects, which were limited mainly to vases, bottles, b ...

'' (Twentieth-Century Masters Series) () * 1995 - ''

Frankenthaler Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...

: Works on Paper 1949-1984'' () * 1992 - ''

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

'' (Modern Masters Series) () * 1986 - ''

Milton Avery Milton Clark Avery (March 7, 1885 – January 3, 1965Haskell, B. (2003). "Avery, Milton". Grove Art Online.) was an American modern painter. Born in Altmar, New York, he moved to Connecticut in 1898 and later to New York City. He was the husband ...

: Paintings of Canada'' () * 1984 - '' David Smith'' (Modern Masters Series) ()

Sources

Syracuse University - Newhouse School

External links

Karen Wilkin At New Criterion
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkin, Karen 1940 births Living people Barnard College alumni Columbia University alumni American art critics American women journalists American women critics American expatriates in Italy 21st-century American women American women curators American curators