Calvin Tomkins

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Calvin Tomkins (born December 17, 1925 in Orange , New Jersey ) is an American writer and art critic for The New Yorker magazine . His publications about Marcel Duchamp became particularly well known .

Live and act

After graduating from Berkshire School in Sheffield , Massachusetts , Tomkins studied at Princeton University until 1948 . He became a journalist and worked for Radio Free Europe from 1953 to 1957 and for Newsweek from 1957 to 1961.

Tomkins' first contribution to The New Yorker appeared in 1958. In 1960 he got a permanent position. The first publication in the field of art history for the magazine appeared in 1962 through Jean Tinguely . In the 1960s and 1970s, he described the New York art scene by reporting on the development of art movements such as Pop Art , Land Art , Minimalism , video art , happenings and installations . From 1980 to 1986 he was the magazine's official art critic and his articles appeared almost weekly. From 1986 Tomkins continued his work for The New Yorker on a freelance basis . His last articles appeared in 2007.

Tomkins interviewed and wrote about the most important artists of the 20th century, such as Marcel Duchamp , whom he met during an interview for Newsweek in 1959 , about John Cage , Robert Rauschenberg , Merce Cunningham , Buckminster Fuller , Philip Johnson , Julia Child , Georgia O'Keeffe , Leo Castelli , Frank Stella , Christo and Jeanne-Claude , Damien Hirst , Richard Serra , Matthew Barney and Jasper Johns . In 2013 the book Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews was published.

Tomkins first wife was Grace Lloyd Tomkins, with whom he has three children. In second and third marriage he was married to Judy Tomkins and Susan Cheever (daughter of John Cheever , one child). His fourth and current wife is Dodie Kazanjian , editor of Vogue and director of the Gallery Met at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Publications (selection)

  • Intermission: A Novel , Viking Press, New York 1951
  • The Lewis and Clark Trail . Harper & Row, New York 1965
  • The World of Marcel Duchamp , Time Inc., New York 1966
  • Eric Hoffer : An American Odyssey . Dutton, New York 1969
  • Merchants and Masterpieces: The Story of the Metropolitan Museum of Art . Dutton, New York 1970
  • With Judy Tomkins, The Other Hampton . Viking-Grossman, New York 1974
  • The Scene: Reports on Post-Modern Art . Viking Press, New York 1976, ISBN 0-670-62035-1
  • With Bob Adelman: Roy Lichtenstein : Mural with Blue Brushstroke . Abrams, New York 1987
  • Post- to Neo-: The Art World of the 1980s . Henry Holt, New York 1988; according to articles published in The New Yorker between 1980 and 1986
  • Duchamp : A Biography . Henry Holt, New York 1996
  • With Dodie Kazanjian: Alex: The Life of Alexander Liberman . Knopf, New York 1993
  • Lives of the Artists . Henry Holt, New York 2008, ISBN 0-8050-8872-5
  • Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews . Badlands Unlimited, Brooklyn 2013, ISBN 978-1-936440-39-9

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Jonathan Lill (2007), Calvin Tomkins Papers in The Museum of Modern Art Archives , The Museum of Modern Art
  2. ↑ a b c Calvin Tomkins , The New Yorker , accessed January 22, 2014
  3. ↑ Calvin Tomkins: Marcel Duchamp. A biography , p. 540
  4. ^ Dodie Kazanjian , huffingtonpost.com, accessed January 22, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Tomkins, Calvin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American author and art critic
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Orange , New Jersey