Barbara Rose

Early life and education

Barbara Ellen Rose was born on June 11, 1936, in a Jewish family in Washington, D.C. to Lillian Rose (née Sand) and Ben Rose. Her father owned a liquor store, and her mother was a homemaker. She graduated from Calvin Coolidge High School in the Takoma neighborhood of Washington D.C.

At the age of 17, Rose enrolled at Smith College, but after two years transferred to Barnard College, where she received a B.A. in 1957. She completed her graduate studies at Columbia University, studying with Meyer Schapiro, Julius S. Held, and Rudolf Wittkower, The university accepted "various books by Rose, published between 1970–1983" as her dissertation.

In 1961, she received a Fulbright scholarship to visit Pamplona, Spain, which sparked a lasting interest in Spanish culture and art. The cinematographer Michael Chapman introduced Rose to many New York artists, including Carl Andre and Frank Stella (to whom she was married 1961–69), which gave her an insight into the New York art scene during the 1960s and 1970s.

Career

Rose's first work of criticism was published in 1962. She later noted that formalist art historian Michael Fried suggested she begin writing as a critic. Rose is credited with popularizing the term Neo-Dada in the early 1960s; Harrison notes that Rose's 1963 publication describing pop art as "neo-Dada" was her "entry into the field of contemporary American art criticism". Rose soon argued that formalist criticism was inadequate to then-contemporary art. She observed in a 1966 article that formalism, while appropriate for analysis of Cubism, was not as useful as a critical lens on abstract expressionism and other movements of the later 20th century. She wrote the textbook American Art Since 1900: A Critical History (1967), which became standard in campuses in the 1970s. From 1971 until 1977, she was an art critic for the New York magazine. In 1972, she received a Front Page Award for her article "Artists with Convictions", which described the art program for inmates of the Manhattan House of Detention for Men. She later worked as an instructor at a New York City correctional facility. She served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Art (from 1988).

From 1981 until 1985, Rose was a senior curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where she curated shows including Miró in America and Fernand Léger and the Modern Spirit: An Avant-Garde Alternative to Non-Objective Art, both in 1982. In 1983, she curated the first Lee Krasner retrospective, which exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Rose frequently wrote on Krasner's work, describing her as "one of the seminal forces among the Abstract Expressionists"; in a 1977 article entitled "Lee Krasner and the Origins of Abstract Expressionism", she argued that Krasner had been unjustly overlooked by critics. Rose's books include over twenty monographs about artists; many of these were also about women, including Helen Frankenthaler (1971), and she also wrote on Nancy Graves, Beverly Pepper and Niki de Saint Phalle.

Rose taught art history at Sarah Lawrence College (from 1967) and was a visiting lecturer at Yale University (from 1970) and Hunter College (1987); she also taught at University of California, Irvine and University of California, San Diego, where she was Regent's Professor.

She wrote North Star: Mark di Suvero (1977), a documentary film about the sculptor Mark di Suvero.

"ABC Art"

In October 1965, Rose published the essay "ABC Art" in Art in America, in which she describes the fundamental characteristics of what was later known as minimal art. ("ABC art" was one of Rose's suggested names for the movement; she also suggested "reductive art" and "object sculpture".) "ABC Art" considers the diverse roots of minimalism in the work of Kasimir Malevich and Marcel Duchamp, as well as the choreography of Merce Cunningham, the art criticism of Clement Greenberg, the philosophy of Wittgenstein, and the novels of Alain Robbe-Grillet. She regarded Ad Reinhardt as a progenitor of minimalism, and not a minimalist proper. In examining the historical roots of minimal art in 1960s America, Rose drew a distinction between Malevich's "search for the transcendental, universal, absolute" and Duchamp's "blanket denial of the existence of absolute values". Rose further argued in "ABC Art" that minimalist sculpture was at its best when it was inhospitable to its audience: "difficult, hostile, awkward and oversize".

Rose grouped some 1960s artists as closer to Malevich, some as closer to Duchamp, and some as between the two; she argued that the work of some minimalists constituted a "synthesis" of Malevich and Duchamp. Closer to Malevich were Walter Darby Bannard, Larry Zox, Robert Huot, Lyman Kipp, Richard Tuttle, Jan Evans, Ronald Bladen, Anne Truitt. Closer to Duchamp were Richard Artschwager and Andy Warhol. Between Malevich and Duchamp she placed Robert Morris, Donald Judd, Carl Andre, and Dan Flavin. Her conclusion was that minimal art is both transcendental and negative:

She also contrasted minimal art with Pop Art:

Personal life

Rose was married four times to three men. In 1959, she married Richard Du Boff, an economic historian; Rose remarried Du Boff in 2009.

Rose died from breast cancer on December 25, 2020, under hospice care in Concord, New Hampshire.

Honors and awards

• 1967 and 1970: College Art Association, Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinguished Art Criticism
• 1972: New York, Front Page Award for best column "Artists with Convictions"
• 1980: CINE Golden Eagle award for Lee Krasner: The Long View
• 2010: Order of Isabella the Catholic by the Spanish government for her contributions to art history and Spanish culture

Selected publications

Books authored

Books edited

Articles

Curated exhibitions

• 1969: Claes Oldenburg, Museum of Modern Art (New York City)
• 1979: Abstract Painting: The Eighties, Grey Art Gallery, New York University (New York City)
• 1982: Joan Miró, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, Texas)
• 1982–1983: Fernand Léger, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris (Paris); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, Texas); Musée Rath (Geneva)
• 1983: Lee Krasner, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, Texas); Museum of Modern Art (New York City)
• 1992: Abstract Painting: The '90s, André Emmerich Gallery (New York City)
• 2016: Painting After Postmodernism, Vanderborght Building (Brussels)

Filmography

• 1972: American Art in the 1960s, narrator
• 1972: The New York School, narrator
• 1977: North Star: Mark di Suvero, writer
• 1988: Lee Krasner: The Long View

References

Sources

References

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2. Atkins, Robert. (1997). "Artspeak". [[Abbeville Publishing Group]].
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4. "Barbara E Rose, United States Census, 1940".
5. (December 27, 2020). "Barbara Rose, Critic and Historian of Modern Art, Dies at 84". The New York Times.
6. (December 27, 2020). "Barbara Rose Obituary (2020)". The Washington Post.
7. (May 18, 2002). "Barbara Rose blossoms in world of art". The Washington Times.
8. "Class of 1957". Barnard Alumnae.
9. Rose, Barbara. (1984). "Selected Publications on Twentieth Century Art". Columbia University.
10. (1983). "Barbara Rose". The Museum of Modern Art.
11. Dagen, Philippe. (2020-12-29). "Barbara Rose, critique et historienne d'art, est morte". [[Le Monde]].
12. "The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation".
13. (November 22, 1972). "Newswomen Name Winners of Awards". The New York Times.
14. (2000). "Challenging Art: Artforum 1962–1974". Soho Press Inc..
15. Jocelyn Gibbs. "Finding aid for the Barbara Rose papers, 1940–1993 (bulk 1960–1985)". Online Archive of California.
16. Wallace Ludel. (December 28, 2020). "Art historian Barbara Rose—Minimalism cheerleader and champion of women artists—has died, aged 84". [[The Art Newspaper]].
17. (October 10, 2017). "Editors' Picks: 18 Things to See in New York This Week".
18. (1977). "North Star: Mark di Suvero". Parott Productions.
19. Smith, William S.. (December 28, 2020). "More Is Less".
20. Motte, Warren F.. (1999). "Small Worlds: Minimalism in Contemporary French Literature". [[University of Nebraska Press]].
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22. Gamwell, Lynn. (2016). "Mathematics and Art: A Cultural History". [[Princeton University Press]].
23. Fink, Robert. (2005). "Repeating Ourselves: American Minimal Music as Cultural Practice". [[University of California Press]].
24. (April 1, 2019). "I Was Married Four Times — Once to a Famous Artist". New York Magazine.
25. (April 3, 1981). "Art People: The Talk of Houston". The New York Times.
26. (December 27, 2020). "Barbara Rose, Impassioned Critic Who Reshaped Art History, Has Died at 84". ARTnews.
27. "Programs: Awards for Distinction: Frank Jewett Mather Award".
28. Sewell, David. (June 1969). "none". [[Art Journal (College Art Association journal).
29. Verdier, Philippe. (1969). "none". Art Journal.
30. (May 31, 1970). "Claes Oldenburg by Barbara Rose".
31. Hobbs, Robert. (1987). "Lee Krasner: A Retrospective". [[Woman's Art Journal]].
32. Schjeldahl, Peter. (February 15, 1976). "Art as Art". The New York Times.
33. Paskus, Benjamin G.. (December 1976). "none". [[Art Journal (College Art Association journal).
34. (1970). "Claes Oldenburg". The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
35. (January 13, 1992). "Last-Minute Reprieve: Is abstract painting dead? Not if curator Barbara Rose can help it.". [[Newsweek]].
36. (1982). "Miró in America". Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
37. (1982). "Léger et l'esprit moderne: une alternative d'avant-garde à l'art non-objectif, 1918–1931 = Léger and the modern spirit : an avant-garde alternative to non objective art, 1918–1931". Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris.
38. (1983). "Lee Krasner: A Retrospective". Museum of Fine Arts.
39. (September 23, 2016). "Barbara Rose discusses "Painting After Postmodernism: Belgium – USA"". Artforum.
40. "FILM & TALK: American Art in the 1960s". [[Parrish Art Museum]].
41. (February 20, 1975). "Barbara Rose shows film at ICA". [[The Boston Globe]].
42. "The New York School (1972)". [[Royal Academy of Arts]].
43. (November 24, 1978). "Art People". The New York Times.