Clement Greenberg

Clement Greenberg, a seminal art critic who helped identify and establish the Abstract Expressionism art movement and who championed Jackson Pollock as its major star, has died. He was 85. Greenberg died Saturday of complications of emphysema in New York City, where he had spent most of his life. "Let nothing come between you and art, nothing, no ideas, nothing," he once said in describing the work of an art critic. "The idea is to see enough: That's how you acquire taste.

Robert Hughes, a sometimes lacerating reviewer who may have commanded a larger audience than any other art critic in history, reaching the masses through 31 years as chief art critic for Time magazine and in a series of multi-part television documentaries for the BBC and PBS, has died. He was 74. Hughes, who also authored "The Fatal Shore," an acclaimed history of his native Australia's founding as a British penal colony, died Monday at Calvary Hospital in New York City after a long, unspecified illness, according to a statement issued by his wife, painter Doris Downes Hughes.

Once upon a time, in faraway Manhattan, there lived an evil art critic named Clement Greenberg. He hurled opinions like lightening bolts. He amassed power that covertly dominated battles over who would rise in the art world. He skipped across ethical lines between his work as a critic and that of power broker. At the same time, there was another figure: Clement the Good. He befriended artists. They invited him to their studios, where they welcomed his canny advice.

At Diane Rosenstein Fine Art, “The Washington School” happily demonstrates that great art beats great criticism, even if it takes some time for that to happen. Fifty years ago, Clement Greenberg claimed that Color Field painting was the be-all and end-all of Western civilization. For a few heady years, museums across the country gobbled up abstract canvases by such Washington painters as Leon Berkowitz, Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Morris Louis, Howard Mehring and Kenneth Noland.

Helen Frankenthaler, a New York artist whose bursts of color achieved by pouring thinned paint onto canvas from coffee cans helped point art in fresh directions after the initial post-World War II explosion of Abstract Expressionism, has died. She was 83. Frankenthaler died Tuesday after a long, unspecified illness at her home in Darien, Conn., her family announced. In 1952, the 23-year-old Frankenthaler hit upon her "soak stain" technique, achieving some of the vibrancy, lightness and pliancy of watercolor by thinning down acrylic paint and pouring it on a large, unprimed canvas spread on the floor of her Manhattan studio.

In her article about the art exhibition "Too Jewish?" Kristine McKenna writes that "the many Jews who played important roles in Modernism--Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko--. . . suppressed their ethnicity" (" 'Too Jewish?' Hardly," Feb. 2). No doubt many Jews in many fields choose to suppress their identities; however, her choice of these four seminal figures is rather curious. The many published essays by critic Harold Rosenberg include "Rediscovering Judaism," "The 'Jew' in Literature," "Jewish Identity in a Free Society" and "Is There a Jewish Art."

At Diane Rosenstein Fine Art, “The Washington School” happily demonstrates that great art beats great criticism, even if it takes some time for that to happen. Fifty years ago, Clement Greenberg claimed that Color Field painting was the be-all and end-all of Western civilization. For a few heady years, museums across the country gobbled up abstract canvases by such Washington painters as Leon Berkowitz, Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Morris Louis, Howard Mehring and Kenneth Noland.

Robert Hughes, a sometimes lacerating reviewer who may have commanded a larger audience than any other art critic in history, reaching the masses through 31 years as chief art critic for Time magazine and in a series of multi-part television documentaries for the BBC and PBS, has died. He was 74. Hughes, who also authored "The Fatal Shore," an acclaimed history of his native Australia's founding as a British penal colony, died Monday at Calvary Hospital in New York City after a long, unspecified illness, according to a statement issued by his wife, painter Doris Downes Hughes.

In 1948, when Grace Hartigan was 26, she decided she was going to paint "every day of the week." So she would have to toss out her old life and invent a new one. Two weeks later, she had left her artist lover, switched to part-time status at her drafting job, deposited her young son with his grandparents and moved into an unheated $30-a-month loft on New York's Lower East Side.

Imagine what the reaction would be today if an art critic issued this pronunciamento: "The extreme eclecticism now prevailing in art is unhealthy, and it should be counteracted, even at the risk of dogmatism and intolerance." Some postmodern identity-politics artist would probably draw and quarter the offender to cheering crowds as part of a performance piece at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.

Helen Frankenthaler, a New York artist whose bursts of color achieved by pouring thinned paint onto canvas from coffee cans helped point art in fresh directions after the initial post-World War II explosion of Abstract Expressionism, has died. She was 83. Frankenthaler died Tuesday after a long, unspecified illness at her home in Darien, Conn., her family announced. In 1952, the 23-year-old Frankenthaler hit upon her "soak stain" technique, achieving some of the vibrancy, lightness and pliancy of watercolor by thinning down acrylic paint and pouring it on a large, unprimed canvas spread on the floor of her Manhattan studio.

Once upon a time, in faraway Manhattan, there lived an evil art critic named Clement Greenberg. He hurled opinions like lightening bolts. He amassed power that covertly dominated battles over who would rise in the art world. He skipped across ethical lines between his work as a critic and that of power broker. At the same time, there was another figure: Clement the Good. He befriended artists. They invited him to their studios, where they welcomed his canny advice.

Imagine what the reaction would be today if an art critic issued this pronunciamento: "The extreme eclecticism now prevailing in art is unhealthy, and it should be counteracted, even at the risk of dogmatism and intolerance." Some postmodern identity-politics artist would probably draw and quarter the offender to cheering crowds as part of a performance piece at Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions.

In her article about the art exhibition "Too Jewish?" Kristine McKenna writes that "the many Jews who played important roles in Modernism--Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko--. . . suppressed their ethnicity" (" 'Too Jewish?' Hardly," Feb. 2). No doubt many Jews in many fields choose to suppress their identities; however, her choice of these four seminal figures is rather curious. The many published essays by critic Harold Rosenberg include "Rediscovering Judaism," "The 'Jew' in Literature," "Jewish Identity in a Free Society" and "Is There a Jewish Art."

Clement Greenberg, a seminal art critic who helped identify and establish the Abstract Expressionism art movement and who championed Jackson Pollock as its major star, has died. He was 85. Greenberg died Saturday of complications of emphysema in New York City, where he had spent most of his life. "Let nothing come between you and art, nothing, no ideas, nothing," he once said in describing the work of an art critic. "The idea is to see enough: That's how you acquire taste.

In 1948, when Grace Hartigan was 26, she decided she was going to paint "every day of the week." So she would have to toss out her old life and invent a new one. Two weeks later, she had left her artist lover, switched to part-time status at her drafting job, deposited her young son with his grandparents and moved into an unheated $30-a-month loft on New York's Lower East Side.

Conceptually, Scot Heywood's latest all-black paintings draw upon a number of historical models, in particular Ad Reinhardt and Clement Greenberg's formalism. Each work consists of three rectangular panels of different sizes butted together to form irregular shapes. Heywood carefully slants each composition, avoiding obvious architectural references. We are forced to consider purely formal matters such as surface, shape, edge and line. Heywood has an optical trick or two up his sleeve.