David
Cohen's Resume
Born, London 1963
HIGHER EDUCATION:
1982-85 University of Sussex, England
BA Hons (History of Art)
Upper Second Class (2.1)
1986-87 Courtauld Institute
of Art, University of London
MA (History of Art)
SCHOLARSHIP:
Areas of interest include:
- School of London painters,
with catalogue essays and articles on such figures as Francis Bacon,
Lucian Freud, Leon Kossoff, Frank Auerbach, and R.B.Kitaj
- Modern and contemporary British sculpture, with a number of publications
on Henry Moore
- The history of art criticism in Britain, with lectures and scholarly
articles devoted to Ruskin, Fry, Read.
- At the Courtauld Institute his MA Report focused on Stanley William
Hayter, the subject of several catalogue essays.
- Alex Katz. Cohen is completing the catalogue raisonné of Alex
Katz's collages
Substantial scholarly essays
include:
- Who's Afraid of Henry Moore?
in Henry Moore: Sculpting the 20th Century
(Dallas Museum of Art/Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2001)
- The Rising City: Urban Themes
in the Art and Writings of C.R.W.Nevinson in C.R.W.Nevinson: The Twentieth
Century
(Imperial War Museum, London, 1999)
- Freud's Probity in Lucian
Freud: Etchings from the Paine Webber Art Collection
(Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1999)
- Identité nationale
et différances: immigrés et émigrés in Un
siecle de sculpture anglaise (Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris,
1996)
- "Grand, Quirky and Living
Forms": Six Painters of the School of London
the main essay in From London: Bacon, Freud, Kossoff, Andrews, Auerbach,
Kitaj
(British Council, London, 1995)
- Herbert Read and Psychoanalysis
in Malcolm Gee [ed] Art Criticism since 1890: Authors, Texts, Contexts
(Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1993)
- Henry Moore's Sculpture in
the Open Air: Landscape, Community and Metaphors of Universal Form in
Henry Moore in Scotland
(Burrell Collection, Glasgow, 1990)
JOURNALISM:
Since 1988 Cohen has written over 250 articles for three dozen different
publications.
- contributor of art reviews and feature articles to leading national
newspapers in the UK, including the Independent, the Guardian, the Times,
New Statesman
- regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review
- regular contributor to Modern Painters from launch issue in 1988 through
2000
- books editor, The Art Newspaper, in first year of publication
- contributor to Art in America, Sculpture, Art International, the Burlington
Magazine, Apollo, RA Magazine, Galleries, Print Quarterly, Art e Dossier,
Art Press etc
- pioneer of On-line art criticism, writing for Slate, Artnet, W'burg,
and artcritical
- contributor to literary magazines including Jewish Quarterly, London
Magazine, Charleston, the New Criterion
- since May 2003, art critic of The New York Sun
CURATORIAL EXPERIENCE:
Since July 2001, David Cohen has been Gallery Director at the New York
Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, New York. Projects
there have included:
- 2001: Académie Matisse: Henri Matisse and his Nordic &
American Pupils,
an international survey of students at the Académie Matisse,
1908-12, the first organized in the United States;
- 2002: drawing retrospectives of artists William Tucker and Ruth Miller
- 2004: Sickert and the Stage, in preparation.
independent curatorial projects:
- 2002: The Tipping Point, a group show of 18 prominent New York artists
at the Locks Gallery, Philadelphia.
- two traveling exhibitions in association with Colby College Museum
of Art, Maine
o 2004: The Collages of Alex Katz
o 2005: Willard Boepple Sculpture
LECTURER AND PANELIST:
David Cohen has lectured at institutions around the world, including:
- London: Tate Gallery, Imperial War Museum, Royal Academy of Arts;
- New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, City University of New York
Graduate Center, New York Studio School;
- New Haven: Yale Center for British Art;
- Copenhagen: Gammelstand Galerie;
- Jerusalem: Jerusalem Studio School;
The Craft of Criticism
In 1999 Cohen instigated an on-going series at the New York Studio School
of public dialogues with leading American art writers. These discussions,
which he moderates, have included Peter Schjeldahl (New Yorker), Roberta
Smith (New York Times), Hilton Kramer (New York Observer), Jed Perl
(New Republic), Peter Plagens (Newsweek), Katy Siegel (Art Forum), independents
Dave Hickey, Michael Brenson, Barry Schwabsky, and Karen Wilkin, and
art historians Linda Nochlin, Rosalind Krauss, Donald Kuspit, Klauss
Kertess, Robert Rosenblum, and Svetlana Alpers.
Symposia
David Cohen has organized and moderated several symposia, including:
- 1998: A one day meeting on Alex Katz at the Royal College of Art,
London, where speakers included Robert Storr, David Sylvester, Kevin
Power, Merlin James and Beat Streuli;
- 1998: A panel on Alex Katz at the New York Studio School with Chuck
Close, Rackstraw Downes, David Salle and Ena Swansea, 1998;
- 2000: a "Ruskiniad" to mark the centenary of the death of
John Ruskin at the National Arts Club, New York, where participants
included Donald Kuspit, Laurie Schneider Adams, Leonard McComb, Hilton
Kramer, Robert Berlind, Jed Perl, Deborah Rosenthal, Timothy Barringer,
Alexi Worth, Rackstraw Downes and Harold Bloom
EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE:
- 1990-1991: books editor of the Art Newspaper for its first year of
publication, commissioning and editing reviews from a roster of critics;
- February 2001: launched artcritical.com where he publishes his own
column and has commissioned articles from a dozen writers, including
several first-time critics
TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
1990s: Visiting Tutor, Royal College of Art, London,
Painting School and Sculpture School;
Winchester College of Art;
Exeter College of Art;
1998: Critic in residence,
Triangle International Workshop,
World Trade Center, New York;
2000: Adjunct professor, State
University of New York, Albany:
courses for MFA and other graduates: Issues in Contemporary Art, and
Art criticism 1900-1970
ADJUDICATION:
Served as judge or juror for various exhibitions and prizes, including:
- 1990s: Ben Uri Art Society Open, London;
- 1998: Kunstlerhaus, Vienna;
- 2002: Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois.