Appreciation: Why New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl was the last of a breed When we think about art, it is natural to think of great artists and great art. It’s more comfortable to think of great art when we are older, living in the past, in our 50s and 60s, or when we are young and new to the city, in our 20s. We have our preferences – great art, great paintings. These are more reliable. I believe Peter Schjeldahl is a great painter, but his paintings are not great art. At the same time, he is the last of a breed – the last critic.
By Peter Schjeldahl Published on April 11 2020
When we think about art, it is natural to think of great artists and great art. It’s more comfortable to think of great art when we are older, living in the past, in our 50s and 60s, or when we are young and new to the city, in our 20s. We have our preferences – great art, great paintings. These are more reliable. I believe Peter Schjeldahl is a great painter, but his paintings are not great art. At the same time, he is the last of a breed – the last critic.
He started writing and publishing reviews on art in New York almost as soon as he arrived in the city – in the year he turned 10. He wrote regularly for publications such as Artforum, Metropolis, Art News, and Art in America, eventually rising to Art & Antiques magazine’s editor-in-chief. His reviews of paintings, drawings, sculpture and photographs in New York art books were widely read. He was also a successful exhibition correspondent.
What Schjeldahl writes are the reviews of what he saw and what he felt. He writes without making judgments. He gives no specific points of praise or criticism, he just writes, and he is rarely wrong. And he has not gone away. In many ways, he is a living embodiment of the art critic from the 1950s and 1960s.
At the same time, he is