Barbara Rose

Barbara Rose was born in Washington, D.C., was educated at Smith College, finishing her first degree at Barnard College in 1957, and went on to do graduate work at Columbia with Meyer Schapiro and other distinguished art historians. She was a pioneer in several fields of scholarship, ranging from Spanish masters, early 20th century American art and contemporary art criticism.

Her first book, American Art since 1900: A Critical History (1967) was published in fourteen languages. In the 1960s and 70s her “ABC Art”, published in Art in America in October 1965, was soon recognized as a pivotal text. It explored the diverse roots of minimalism in the choreography of Merce Cunningham, the art criticism of Greenberg, the philosophy of Wittgenstein and the novels of Robbe-Grillet. In discussing the evolution of the American artists soon to be labelled Minimalists in 1960s America, she noted both the influence of Malevich’s “search for the transcendental, universal, absolute” and Marcel Duchamp’s “blanket denial of the existence of absolute values.” In the 21st century she became a vigorous defender of the autonomy of painting.

Rose was a prolific critic, writing often for Art International, Art in America, and Artforum. From 1966 to 1988 she was contributing editor at Vogue, at New York magazine (1971-1977), Partisan Review (1975-1996), and Arts Magazine (1978-1988). She was editor in chief at the Journal of Art (1988 to 1991). Her books include: The Golden Age of Dutch Painting (1969); Pavilion: Experiments in Art and Technology (1972); Art as Art: The Selected Writings of Ad Reinhardt (1975); Monochromes: From Malevich to the Present (2006) and Painting after Postmodernism: Belgium–USA (2016). A collection of her critical writings was published as Autocritique: Essays on Art and Anti-Art, 1963–1987 (1988). Her monographs include Claes Oldenburg(Museum of Modern Art: 1970); Helen Frankenthaler (1971), Ellsworth Kelly (Stedelijk Museum, 1979), Patrick Henry Bruce (Museum of Modern Art, 1979); Barnett Newman (Stedelijk Museum, 1980), Alexander Liberman (1981); Magdalena Abakanowicz (1994). As curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (1981-1985), her exemplary exhibitions included Miró in America (1982); Fernand Léger and the Modern Spirit (1982); a career-defining retrospective devoted to Lee Krasner (1983); and Fresh Paint: The Houston School (1985). She was also the first director of the Katzen Arts Center at American University, Washington, D.C.

Her film credits include the documentaries The New York School and American Art in the 1960s (1972). She collaborated with François de Menil and Philip Glass to make North Star: Mark di Suvero (1977). She directed and produced Lee Krasner: The Long View (1978), Tanya Grosman: a life with painters and poets (1979) and Art/Work/USA (1980).

In 2010 she was awarded the Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Spanish government for her contributions to art history and Spanish culture and art; and in 2011 Rose became the first Morgan-Menil Fellow at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York. Rose’s papers are in the Archives of American Art and the Getty Research Institute; some films are preserved in New York’s Anthology Film Archives.