Allan Douglass Coleman

• Name — A. D. Coleman • Birth Name — Allan Douglass Coleman • Born — 19 December 1943 • Birthplace — Brooklyn, New York, U.S. • Occupation — * Photography critic • historian • curator • educator • Education — Lehman College • Genre — Non-fiction • Subject — Art criticism, Photography, Digital technology • Awards — Top 100 People in Photography (American Photo, 1974) • Website — http: www.nearbycafe.com

Coleman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 19, 1943. His parents were of Russian and Polish descent on the side of his father, Earl M. Coleman, and Scots on the side of his mother, née Frances Louise Allan. During the McCarthy era (1951–3) his family moved to France, during which time he became bilingual francophone, and then briefly to England, before returning to the U.S. Aside from that interruption he was raised in Manhattan, where he went to school at, successively, P.S. 41 and P.S. 3 in Greenwich Village, Stuyvesant High School, and Hunter College (Bronx campus), now known as Lehman College. While at Hunter he worked on both the bi-campus newspaper, the Hunter Arrow, and the school literary magazine, Echo. In 1963 he published a one-act-play in Echo, titled "Midnight Mass", that evoked the wrath of the conservative Catholic newspaper The Tablet (Diocese of Brooklyn), resulting in a public uproar that nearly ended up with the imposition of censorship on all CUNY publications. In 1963–64 he served as editor-in-chief of the Hunter Arrow. He received his B.A. in English Literature from Hunter in 1964, and was named to Sigma Tau Delta, the English honors society.

Coleman was the first photo critic for The New York Times, authoring 120 articles during his tenure. He started writing in 1967 and has contributed to The Village Voice, The New York Observer and numerous magazines, artist monographs and other publications worldwide. He was named one of The Top 100 People in Photography by American Photo Magazine in 1974. Coleman launched The Nearby Café, an online magazine, in 1995.