Rosenberg, Harold

▪ American writer

born Feb. 2, 1906, New York City

died July 11, 1978, New York City

      U.S. writer, educator, and philosopher particularly known for his insightful contributions to the understanding of 20th-century visual art.

      Rosenberg was educated at the City College of New York and Brooklyn Law School. From 1939 to 1942 he worked for the WPA and wrote the American Guide. His published works include Trace Above the Streets (1942; a collection of poems), The Tradition of the New (1959), The Anxious Object (1964), The De-Definition of Art (1972) and monographs on Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning, Saul Steinberg, and Barnett Newman. Rosenberg taught and lectured in colleges and universities throughout the United States and wrote myriad articles about art and literature for the Partisan Review and Art News. He was the art critic for The New Yorker from 1967 until his death.

      Many of Rosenberg's writings about such artists as Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann, Mark Rothko, and Philip Guston helped to clarify concepts and answer questions about various components of abstract painting. He seemed to often understand a work of art from the artist's perspective, which made many of his commentaries educational and provocative. Rosenberg was significant in the development of public awareness of the Abstract Expressionist art movement that emerged in New York during the 1940s. The now commonly used term “Action painting” was his original phrase used to describe particular aspects of that movement.

* * *