Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of The New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times.
Roberta Smith
Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation · Elizabeth A. Sackler Foundation, YouTube, 1:16:29 mins · CC BY 4.0
- Name
- Roberta Smith
- Born
- 1948
- Birthplace
- New York City, US
- Occupation
- Art critic
- Education
- Grinnell College
- Nationality
- United States
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In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Roberta Smith • Born — 1948 • Birthplace — New York City, US • Occupation — Art critic • Education — Grinnell College • Period — 1970s–present • Subject — Art
Early life and education
Early life and education
Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Smith studied at Grinnell College in Iowa. Her career in the arts started in 1968, while an undergraduate summer intern at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
Career
Career
In 1968-1969, she participated in the Art History/Museum Studies track of the Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) where she met and developed an affinity for Donald Judd and became interested in minimal art. After graduation, she returned to New York City in 1971 to take a secretarial job at the Museum of Modern Art, followed by part-time assistant jobs to Judd in the early 1970s, and Paula Cooper for the first three years that she had her Paula Cooper Gallery, beginning in 1972. While at the Paula Cooper Gallery Smith wrote exhibition reviews for Artforum, and subsequently for Art in America, the Village Voice and other publications. She has written and spoken about Judd on many occasions throughout her career, and upon his death in 1995, penned his New York Times obituary. Smith began writing for The New York Times in 1986, and became the newspaper's co-chief art critic in 2011. She has written many essays for catalogues and monographs on contemporary artists, and wrote the featured essay in the 1975 Judd catalogue raisonné published by the National Gallery of Canada. She writes not only about contemporary art but about the visual arts in general, including decorative arts, popular and outsider art, design and architecture. Smith is a longtime advocate for museums to be free and open to the public. In 2012, she received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2017, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago awarded Smith her second honorary doctorate.
Personal life
Personal life
Smith married Jerry Saltz, senior art critic for New York magazine, in 1992. The couple live in an apartment in Greenwich Village.
Awards and honors
• 2003 Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism, College Art Association. • 2009 AICA/USA Distinguished Critic Lecture. • 2014 Marina Kellen French Distinguished Visitor, The American Academy in Berlin.
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Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Roberta Smith, revision 1371550207 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Roberta Smith. The New York Times. 2018-03-15. 0362-4331.
- 2.Christopher Bolen, "Roberta Smith & Jerry Saltz", Interview magazine, undated.
- 3.Roberta Smith and Holland Cotter Named Co-Chief Art Critics of The New York Times. Observer. 2011-09-14.
- 4.Articles in The New York Times, accessed May 18, 2009
- 5.Interview in the Brooklyn Rail, accessed May 18, 2009
- 6.Sandler, Irving. Roberta Smith with Irving Sandler. The Brooklyn Rail. 2009-04-06.
- 7.Art., Whitney Museum of American. Independent study program : 40 years : Whitney Museum of American Art, 1968-2008. Whitney Museum of American Art. 2008. 9780874271584.
- 8.Local History: Donald Judd Design Objects. Judd Foundation.
- 9.Smith, Roberta. Christie's Presale Show: Light and Space Enough to Really See Judd. The New York Times. 2006-04-24. 0362-4331.
- 10.Smith, Roberta. ART; The World According to Judd. The New York Times. 1995-02-26. 0362-4331.
- 11.Stevens, Mary Clare. Roberta Smith with Jarrett Earnest. The Brooklyn Rail.
- 12.Pilat, Kasia. From 'Vicious' to Celebratory: The Times's Reviews of Judy Chicago's 'The Dinner Party'. The New York Times. 2018-02-28. 0362-4331.
- 13.Cotter, Holland. The Met Should Be Open to All. The New Pay Policy Is a Mistake. The New York Times. 2018-01-04. 0362-4331.
- 14.Roberta Smith to Accept Honorary Doctorate, Holland Cotter at Work on Book. Observer. 2012-05-02.
- 15.SAIC Announces its 2017 Commencement Speaker and Honorary Doctorate Recipients. School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
- 16.The College Art Association. Awards.
- 17.The Vera List Center for Arts and Politics Roberta Smith Criticism A Life Sentence. veralistcenter.org.
- 18.Roberta Smith - American Academy. American Academy.
- 19.Roberta Smith & Jerry Saltz. Interview Magazine. 2013-12-09.
- 20.Jerry Saltz and the Future of the Critic-Artist artnet News. artnet News. 2016-12-09.
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 26 August 2026.
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