Whitehot Magazine

Donald Kuspit

Donald Kuspit is one of America’s most distinguished art critics. In 1983 he received the prestigious Frank Jewett Mather Award for Distinction in Art Criticism, given by the College Art Association. In 1993 he received an honorary doctorate in fine arts from Davidson College, in 1996 from the San Francisco Art Institute, and in 2007 from the New York Academy of Art. In 1997 the National Association of the Schools of Art and Design presented him with a Citation for Distinguished Service to the Visual Arts. In 1998 he received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2000 he delivered the Getty Lectures at the University of Southern California. In 2005 he was the Robertson Fellow at the University of Glasgow. In 2008 he received the Tenth Annual Award for Excellence in the Arts from the Newington-Cropsey Foundation. In 2013 he received the First Annual Award for Excellence in Art Criticism from the Gabarron Foundation. He has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Fulbright Commission, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, Guggenheim Foundation, and Asian Cultural Council, among other organizations.

articles by this author

The Female Gaze: Mary Cassatt’s Paintings Of Women And Children by Donald Kuspit

Steven Manolis’ Big Small Paintings by Donald Kuspit

Susan Swartz, Transcendentalist by Donald Kuspit

Donald Kuspit on Mark Tennant at Georges Berges Gallery: The Past In The Present, The Present In The Past

Beatrice Caracciolo’s Dissolution Of Pieter Bruegel’s Parable Of The Blind at Paula Cooper Gallery by Donald Kuspit

Churning The Depths: Diane Holland’s Palimpsests by Donald Kuspit

Master With A Microscope: Jan Hinsch’s Abstract Nature by Donald Kuspit

The New Spiritual Abstraction: Lorien Suarez-Kanerva’s Paintings by Donald Kuspit

Sarah Grilo’s New York Years, 1962-1970: Abstract Art With A Social Conscience by Donald Kuspit

Book Review: Suzaan Boettger, Inside the Spiral: The Passions of Robert Smithson

Mitchell Johnson: Memorable Epiphanies by Donald Kuspit

Making Spiritual Sense Again: Abstract Painting In Sacred Space by Donald Kuspit

The Temptation of Edward Hopper: Edward Hopper as Puritan at Craig F. Starr Gallery by Donald Kuspit

Flying High: Alexandra Pacula’s Paintings at Gallery Henoch by Donald Kuspit

David Black’s Spirit Houses by Donald Kuspit

Jennifer Bartlett’s Oceanic Feeling by Donald Kuspit

Naturally Abstract: Sebastian Blanck’s Updated Venus at Miles McEnery Gallery by Donald Kuspit

Tour De Force: J. Steven Manolis’ New Abstractions by Donald Kuspit

Mitchell Johnson: Abstract Realism, Realistic Abstraction by Donald Kuspit

A Family Of Fiends: Michael Zansky’s Caricatures by Donald Kuspit

A Celebration Of Soul: Kool Koor at Shin Gallery by Donald Kuspit

Richard Avedon’s Portraits: False Selves And True Selves at Gagosian Gallery by Donald Kuspit

A Celebration Of Water: Jitka Hanzlova’s Photographs at Yancey Richardson Gallery by Donald Kuspit

Alfred Leslie, The Return Of Muscular Realism (The Figure Redivivus) by Donald Kuspit

The Return To Reality: Carole Feuerman’s Feminist Art by Donald Kuspit

Donald Martiny, Set Designer by Donald Kuspit

Matisse in the 1930s at the Philadelphia Museum of Art: Priest of the Eternal Feminine, Herald of Eternal Youth: The Last Years by Donald Kuspit

The Semiotic Anti-Subject: Postmodernism’s Repudiation Of Subjectivity by Donald Kuspit

Nonobjectivity as a Crisis of Subjectivity by Donald Kuspit

Abdulnasser Gharem's Irony by Donald Kuspit

Elizabeth Osborne, Consummate Painter by Donald Kuspit

The Romantic Subject: Art As The Embodiment Of Creative Illness by Donald Kuspit

Lucio Fontana + Italian Gothic Painting at Robilant+Voena by Donald Kuspit

Sean Scully, Painter Poet by Donald Kuspit

Empathic Abstraction: Hisako Kobayashi’s Buddhist Paintings by Donald Kuspit

Sacred Geometry: Frank Gerritz’s Abstract Icons by Donald Kuspit

Winslow Homer, Darwinian Realist by Donald Kuspit

Doug Argue, Figurative Expressionist by Donald Kuspit

The Therapeutic Value Of Aesthetic Experience by Donald Kuspit

John Chamberlain, The Greatest Junk Artist by Donald Kuspit

Bountiful Buttocks by Donald Kuspit

The Consummate Importance Of The Classical Tradition by Donald Kuspit

Alyssa Monks: Pandemic Self-Portraits at Forum Gallery by Donald Kuspit

Jasper Johns On Death by Donald Kuspit

Self-Healing Through Art: Hunter Biden’s Abstract Paintings by Donald Kuspit

Faking The Sublime: Barnet Newman’s Vir Heroicus Sublimis, 1951 by Donald Kuspit

Donald Kuspit on Andy Denzler’s Anatomy of Mind at Opera Gallery

Donald Kuspit on Jorge Tacla’s Death Anxiety

Donald Kuspit on Elated Abstraction: Irene Neal’s Paintings

Donald Kuspit on Beauty and the Beast: Hanna Hansdotter and Ry David Bradley at The Hole

Donald Kuspit on Frank Auerbach’s Destructive Portraits

Donald Kuspit on Gerrit Rietveld’s Red Blue Chair 1918-1923

Idiosyncratic Nature: Donald Kuspit on Inka Essenhigh’s Flowers and Patrice Charbonneau’s Shoals

Donald Kuspit on Danish Avant-Garde Art During The Nazi Occupation

Donald Kuspit on Rosalyn Schwartz’s Abstract Tour de Force "Female Gatekeepers"

Donald Kuspit On The Horns Of A Dilemma: Beatrice Caracciolo’s Agitated Drawings at Paula Cooper Gallery

The Empathic Portrait: Sonia Stark’s Charcoal Drawings

The Ugly Truth: Otto Dix’s Art by Donald Kuspit

Trevor Guthrie: Cynical Realist by Donald Kuspit

The Consolation Of Abstract Art by Donald Kuspit

Dream Pictures From Mannerism To Modernism

Donald Kuspit on Avant-Garde And Kitsch: Re-Thinking An Old Distinction And Its Fate

Donald Kuspit on the Psychodynamics Of Video Art: In memory of Hans Breder, Intermedia Artist, 1935-2017

The Residue of History: Andrew Wyeth’s Nostalgia for the Great Tradition by Donald Kuspit

Donald Kuspit on Lucas Samaras Again And Again And Again Etc.

Donald Kuspit on The Benefit Of Art According To Louise Bourgeois: “Art Is A Guarantee of Sanity”

Donald Kuspit on the Artist As Ideal Patient

Donald Kuspit on Telling The Emotional Truth: Rambling Reflections On Expressionism, Especially German Expressionism

Donald Kuspit On Thinking About Art And The Critic’s Situation

The Troubled Grandeur Of Quebec: Adam Miller’s History Painting

Chris Klein at Bernarducci

The Abstract Sublime: Jill Krutick’s Paintings

Donald Kuspit on Delayed Gratification And Immediate Gratification Art: A Theory Of The Lived Experience Of Art

Donald Kuspit on Picasso's Self Doubt

Two Artists at the American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center, Washington, DC

Donald Kuspit on John Baeder’s Diner Paintings

Donald Kuspit on Michael Zansky’s Van Gogh Portraits

Donald Kuspit on Holy Matter: Daniel Massad’s Still Lifes

Nathan Walsh’s New York by Donald Kuspit

Art As Regression To Childhood: Malcolm Morley’s War Games at Sperone Westwater by Donald Kuspit

Avant-Garde Psychopathology by Donald Kuspit

Adrian Piper: Self-Healing Through Meta-Art by Donald Kuspit

Art Criticism By Artists: A Case Study by Donald Kuspit

Mykola Babak And Evgene Matveev: Dialectical Subversives

The Feminine Sublime: Hisako Kobayashi’s Abstract Paintings

Donald Kuspit on Surreal Nature: Carol Brown Goldberg’s Entanglement Series

Nature in Art at the Rainforest Art Foundation

Magic Mountains by Donald Kuspit

Toys For Thought: Claes Oldenburg’s Shelf Lives

Art After The End Of Art: Beginning Again With The Animal Bodily Ego

Creative Destruction Once More: Donald Kuspit on Graham Wilson’s Paintings

Empty Art: Ad Reinhardt’s Black Paintings

Hermann Nitsch’s Imitatio Christi

Cheerless Cities: Gustavo Acosta’s Paintings

Irreversible Insanity: Eric Lacombe’s Psychotic Realism

Donald Kuspit on Contemporary Physiognomists