Famous Art Critics

John Hoyer Updike (March 18, 1932 – January 27, 2009) was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. He is one of only three writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, sharing the award with Booth Tarkington and William Faulkner. Updike published over twenty novels, a dozen short-story collections, poetry, and criticism throughout his career. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems appeared in The New Yorker starting in 1954. He also wrote regularly for The New York Review of Books.

Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. Working as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art made O'Hara prominent in New York City's art world. He is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School, an informal group of artists, writers, and musicians inspired by jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting, and contemporary avant-garde art movements. His poetry has a personal tone and content, described as sounding "like entries in a diary".

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (German: [ˈlɛsɪŋ]; 22 January 1729 – 15 February 1781) was a German writer, philosopher, dramatist, publicist, and art critic. He was an outstanding representative of the Enlightenment era. His plays and theoretical writings substantially influenced German literature. Theatre historians consider him the first dramaturg at Abel Seyler's Hamburg National Theatre.

Charles Pierre Baudelaire (French: [ʃaʁl bodlɛʁ]; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, art critic, and translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work is the book of lyric poetry, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil). This work expresses the changing nature of beauty in industrializing Paris during the mid-19th century. Baudelaire’s original style of prose-poetry influenced many poets, including Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé.

Arthur Coleman Danto (January 1, 1924 – October 25, 2013) was an American art critic and philosopher. He is known for his influential work as an art critic for The Nation and his studies in philosophical aesthetics and the philosophy of history. Danto also contributed significantly to the philosophy of action. His interests covered thought, feeling, the philosophy of art, theories of representation, philosophical psychology, Hegel's aesthetics, and philosophers Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer.

Denis Diderot (French: [dəni did(ə)ʁo]; 5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer. He co-founded the Encyclopédie with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. Diderot was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment. He studied philosophy at a Jesuit college before considering working in the church clergy or law. In 1734, his father disowned him, leading Diderot to live a bohemian existence for the next decade.

José Bento Renato Monteiro Lobato (April 18, 1882 – July 4, 1948) was one of Brazil's most influential writers. He wrote primarily children's books set in the fictional Sítio do Picapau Amarelo (Yellow Woodpecker Farm). Previously, he published fiction, translations, and art criticism. Lobato founded one of Brazil's first publishing houses, Companhia Editora Nacional, and supported nationalism. He was born in Taubaté, São Paulo. His children’s books make up about half of his total production.

René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (4 December 1875 – 29 December 1926), known as Rainer Maria Rilke (German: [ˈʁaɪnɐ maˈʁiːa ˈʁɪlkə]), was a Bohemian-Austrian poet and novelist. Critics recognize him as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets. He wrote both verse and lyrical prose, and his work is described by critics as inherently "mystical". His writings include one novel, several poetry collections, and correspondence filled with haunting images about the difficulty of communion with the ineffable.

Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev (Russian: Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев; IPA: [sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavɫovʲɪtɕ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf]) lived from March 31, 1872, to August 19, 1929. Outside Russia, he was known as Serge Diaghilev. Diaghilev was a Russian art critic, patron, and ballet impresario. He founded the Ballets Russes, which produced many famous dancers and choreographers.

John Ruskin (8 February 1819 – 20 January 1900) was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era. He also acted as an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, and social thinker. Ruskin wrote about geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany, and political economy. His writing styles varied widely. He produced essays, treatises, poetry, lectures, travel guides, manuals, letters, and even a fairy tale. He also created detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, and architecture.

Francis Vane Phipson Rutter (17 February 1876 – 18 April 1937) was a British art critic, curator and activist. In 1903, he became art critic for The Sunday Times, a position which he held for the rest of his life. He was an early champion in England of modern art, founding the French Impressionist Fund in 1905 to buy work for the national collection, and in 1908 starting the Allied Artists Association to show "progressive" art, as well as publishing its journal, Art News, the "First Art Newspaper in the United Kingdom". In 1910, he began to actively support women's suffrage, chairing meetings,

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes AO (28 July 1938 – 6 August 2012) was an Australian-born art critic, writer, and producer of television documentaries. His best seller The Fatal Shore (1986) is a study of the British penal colonies and early history of Australia. He was described in 1997 by Robert Boynton of The New York Times as "the most famous art critic in the world."Hughes earned widespread recognition for his book and television series on modern art, The Shock of the New, and for his longstanding position as art critic with TIME magazine. Known for his contentious critiques of art and artis

Danny C. Sillada (born April 27, 1963) is a Filipino artist, writer and cultural critic from Mindanao. Sillada has contributed to various art forms, from painting, to music and performance art. He was a recipient of 2003 "Pasidungog Centennial Awards" for literary and visual arts, a centennial event that was attended by the president of the Philippines Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in his hometown province in Davao Oriental. In 2005, Sillada was controversial for his artwork titled Menstrual Period in Political History, “a satirical take on the recurring political crisis in the Philippines. This con

Ranjit Hoskote (born 29 March 1969) is a contemporary Indian poet, art critic, cultural theorist and independent curator.

Victorine "Tory" Dent (January 1, 1958 – December 30, 2005) was an American poet, art critic, and commentator on the AIDS crisis.

Frank Popper (born April 17, 1918) is a historian of art and technology and Professor Emeritus of Aesthetics and the Science of Art at the University of Paris VIII. He has been decorated with the medal of the Légion d'honneur by the French Government. He is author of the books: Origins and Development of Kinetic Art, Art, Action, and Participation, Art of the Electronic Age and From Technological to Virtual Art. He turned 100 in April 2018.Popper documents the historical record of the relationship between technology and participatory forms of art, especially between the late 1960s and the earl

David Hickey has written for many American publications including Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, and Vanity Fair. He was formerly Professor of English at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and Distinguished Professor of Criticism for the MFA Program in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of New Mexico.

John Edwin Canaday was a leading American art critic, author and art historian.

Frank Jewett Mather was an American art critic and professor. He was born at Deep River, Connecticut, and graduated from Williams College in 1889 and from Johns Hopkins in 1892: he studied also at Berlin and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris. From 1893 to 1900 he served as instructor and assistant professor of English and Romance languages at Williams College, and thereafter was professor of art and archaeology at Princeton. Mather was an editorial writer for the New York Evening Post and assistant editor of the Nation and art critic for the Post; from 1904 to 1906 was American editor of t

Guillaume Apollinaire (French: [ɡijom apɔlinɛʁ]; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish-Belarusian descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the early 20th century, as well as one of the most impassioned defenders of Cubism and a forefather of Surrealism. He is credited with coining the term "cubism" in 1911 to describe the emerging art movement and the term "surrealism" in 1917 to describe the works of Erik Satie. The term Orphism (1912) is also his. Apollinaire wrote one of the earliest Sur

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 Angeles in the 1970s.

Bernard William Smith was an Australian art historian, art critic and academic.

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 BBC series of the same name, is often used as a university text. He lived in France for more than half a century.

Shen Kuo (Chinese: 沈括; 1031–1095) or Shen Gua, courtesy name Cunzhong (存中) and pseudonym Mengqi (now usually given as Mengxi) Weng (夢溪翁), was a Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Excelling in many fields of study and statecraft, he was a mathematician, astronomer, meteorologist, geologist, entomologist, zoologist, botanist, pharmacologist, medical scientist, agronomist, archaeologist, ethnographer, cartographer, geographer, geophysicist, mineralogist, encyclopedist, military general, diplomat, hydraulic engineer, inventor, economist, academy chancellor,

Karen Wilkin, born in 1940, is a New York art critic and curator specializing in 20th-century modernism. She studied at Barnard College and Columbia University. Wilkin received the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and a Fulbright Scholarship to Rome. She organized many international exhibitions and wrote monographs on Stuart Davis, David Smith, Anthony Caro, Kenneth Noland, Helen Frankenthaler, and Hans Hofmann. Recent projects include a Hofmann retrospective for the Naples Art Museum in Florida, and introductory essays with William C. Agee.

Donald Kuspit (born March 26, 1935) is an American art critic, poet, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of art history and philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was formerly a professor of art history at the School of Visual Arts. Kuspit is one of America's most distinguished art critics. He served as the A. D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University from 1991 to 1997. In 1983, he received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism and an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Davidson College.

Roger Eliot Fry (1866–1934) was an English painter, critic, and member of the Bloomsbury Group. He established his reputation as a scholar of Old Masters. Fry advocated for recent developments in French painting and named this movement Post-Impressionism. He made modern art public in Britain. Fry emphasized the formal qualities of paintings over the ideas conjured by their content. Kenneth Clark described him as "incomparably the greatest in" art.

Deborah Solomon (born August 9, 1957) is an American art critic, journalist, and biographer. Her weekly column, "Questions For," ran in The New York Times Magazine from 2003 to 2011. She currently serves as the art critic for WNYC Public Radio, the New York City affiliate of NPR.

Mikhail Vartanov (born February 21, 1937; died December 31, 2009) was a film director, cinematographer, documentarian, essayist, photographer, and artist. He developed a style of documentary filmmaking called the "direction of undirected action." Vartanov worked with Sergei Parajanov and influential films like Parajanov: The Last Spring.

George Augustus Moore (1852–1933) was an Irish novelist, poet, art critic, and memoirist. Moore lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo, from a Roman Catholic landed family. He studied art in Paris during the 1870s, befriending leading French artists. As a naturalistic writer, he absorbed the lessons of French realists and was influenced by Émile Zola.

Bernard Berenson (1865–1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book, Drawings of the Florentine Painters, was a major international success. Berenson was a key figure in attributing Old Masters, which attracted new interest from American collectors. His judgments were highly respected in the art world. Recent research has questioned some of his authentications due to high commissions paid to him.

Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and essayist.

Octave Mirbeau (1848–1917) was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, novelist, and playwright. His work achieved celebrity in Europe and public success while appealing to the artistic avant-garde. His work was translated into thirty languages.

Moša Pijade (January 4, 1890 – March 15, 1957), nicknamed Čiča Janko, was a Serbian and Yugoslav communist. He collaborated with Josip Broz Tito and served as a politician and full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Sir Osbert Lancaster, CBE (1908–1986) was an English cartoonist, architectural historian, stage designer, and author. He created cartoons for the British press. Lancaster worked throughout his life to inform the public about good buildings and architectural heritage. Educated at Charterhouse School and Lincoln College, Oxford, he studied art at leading colleges in Oxford and London.

Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de Goncourt (May 26, 1822 – July 16, 1896) was a French writer, literary critic, art critic, book publisher, and founder of the Académie Goncourt.

Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (1903–1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. Clark ran important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s. He gained public notice on television by presenting arts programs during the 1950s and 1960s, including the Civilisation series in 1969. Clark was introduced to fine arts early on. John Ruskin's writings influenced him to believe everyone should access great art.

Vasily Petrovich Botkin was a Russian essayist, literary, art, and music critic, translator, and publicist.

Aydin Aghdashloo (Persian: آیدین آغداشلو‎; born October 30, 1940) is an Iranian painter, graphist, writer, and film critic. The French government decorated him with the Chevalier(Knight) award for his civil achievements.

Robert C. Morgan (born 1943) is an American art critic, historian, curator, poet, and artist. He is represented by the gallery Proyectos Monclova in Mexico City.

Clarence Rivers King (January 6, 1842 – December 24, 1901) was an American geologist, mountaineer, and author. He directed the United States Geological Survey from 1879 to 1881. King explored the Sierra Nevada.

Catherine Millet (French: [mijɛ]; born 1 April 1948 in Bois-Colombes, Hauts-de-Seine) is a French writer, art critic, curator, and founder of the magazine Art Press. The magazine focuses on modern and contemporary art.

Lars Nittve (born 17 September 1953) is a Swedish museum director, curator, art critic, and writer. He founded Tate Modern in London and directed the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. He also founded Rooseum – Center for Contemporary Art in Malmö, Sweden, and directed the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark. Nittve served as Executive Director of M+, a museum for visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong.

Sir Sacheverell Reresby Sitwell, 6th Baronet (15 November 1897 – 1 October 1988), was an English writer. He is best known as an art critic and music critic. His books on Mozart, Liszt, and Domenico Scarlatti are still consulted. He also wrote about architecture, particularly the baroque. Dame Edith Sitwell and Sir Osbert Sitwell were his older siblings.

Stéphanie Moisdon (born 1967) is a French curator and art critic. She co-curated the exhibition Présumés Innocents in Bordeaux (2000), Manifesta 4 in Frankfurt (2001), and Before the End at Consortium, Dijon (2004). She co-founded the BDV (Bureau des vidéos) and edited Frog magazine. She heads the Masters Programme in Fine Art at the École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ECAL) in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 2002, she published her collection of texts and interviews, including writings on John Armleder, Mehdi Belhaj Kacem, Henry Bond, Guy Debord, Jean-Luc Godard, and Dom.

Julio Valle Castillo (born August 10, 1952) was born in Masaya, Nicaragua. He is a poet, novelist, painter, essayist, and a critic of literature and art.

Nancy Adajania (born Bombay, 15 December 1971) is a cultural theorist, art critic, and independent curator based in India.

Necmi Sönmez (born 1968, Istanbul, Turkey) is a Turkish-German curator, art critic, and writer. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Raúl Zamudio is a New York-based independent curator, art critic, art historian, and educator.

Dominique Moulon (born 1962) is a historian of art and technology, specializing in French digital art. He wrote the book Art contemporain nouveaux médias.