Hilton Kramer
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Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and
essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...
ist.


Biography


Early life

Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a
bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...
in English;
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
; he studied literature and philosophy at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...
,
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...
, and the New School for Social Research.


Career

Kramer worked as the editor of ''
Arts Magazine ''Arts Magazine'' was a prominent monthly magazine devoted to fine art. It was established in 1926 and last published in 1992. History Early years Launched in 1926 and originally titled ''The Art Digest,'' it was printed semi-monthly from Octobe ...
'', art critic for '' The Nation'', and from 1965 to 1982, as chief art critic for ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''. He also published in the '' Art and Antiques Magazine'' and '' The New York Observer''. Kramer's ''
New York Post The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com. It was established ...
'' column, initially called "Times Watch" - focused on his former employer, the New York Times - and later expanded to "Media Watch", was published weekly from 1993 to November 1997. Kramer fought against what he considered to be leftist political bias in art criticism, and what he perceived as the aesthetic nihilism characteristic of many 20th century working artists and art critics. The frustration with ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
s policies led to his resignation from the newspaper in 1982. He co-founded (with Samuel Lipman) the conservative magazine ''
The New Criterion ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'', for which Kramer was also co-editor and publisher. He took a strongly anti-Communist stance in his 2003 review of Anne Applebaum's '' Gulag: A History''. In ''The Twilight of the Intellectuals'' (1999), he defended the anti-Communist views of art critic
Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formali ...
. In 1952, Kramer took issue with the prevailing understanding of
action painting Action painting, sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied. The resulting work often emphasizes the physical a ...
as a "psychological event." He argued that such an understanding "denied the aesthetic efficacy of painting itself and attempted to remove art from the only sphere in which it can be truly experienced, which is the aesthetic sphere." He took issue with pop art, conceptual art, and
postmodern art Postmodern art is a body of art movements that sought to contradict some aspects of modernism or some aspects that emerged or developed in its aftermath. In general, movements such as intermedia, installation art, conceptual art and multimedia, ...
. Kramer characterized postmodernism in the visual arts as " modernism with a sneer, a giggle, modernism without any animating faith in the nobility and pertinence of its cultural mandate." He was incisive in his distinction between modernism and postmodernism, referring to the age of postmodernism as "this age of irony and institutionalized subversion." He has contrasted this with ideals he found in modernism: "the discipline of truthfulness, the rigor of honesty." Kramer contended that federal funding of the arts favored political correctness over artistic merit. He wrote in 1993: :The most significant thing about this bureaucratic leviathan is that it is completely captive to the political Left. Its principal purpose today is to advance the radical Left's agenda for the cultural revolution that has already completed its "long march" through the universities and is currently in the process of annexing many other institutions of cultural life—the art museums, for example, where the revolution has made enormous inroads in programs and acquisitions, and in the policies of the foundations, corporations, and agencies of government that support museums. Kramer faulted the Whitney Biennial for what he saw as a preoccupation with gender and ethnic identity. He wrote that the biennials "seem to be governed by a positive hostility toward — a really visceral distaste for — anything that might conceivably engage the eye in a significant or pleasurable visual experience."


Death

Hilton Kramer died of heart failure on March 27, 2012, in
Harpswell, Maine Harpswell is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, United States, within Casco Bay in the Gulf of Maine. The population was 5,031 at the 2020 census. Harpswell is composed of land contiguous with the rest of Cumberland County, called Harpswell ...
, two days after his 84th birthday. His only immediate survivor was his wife, Esta Kramer (1929–2020).Remembering Esta Kramer
/ref>


Works

* 1973. ''The Age of the Avant-Garde''. (). * 1985. ''The Revenge of the Philistines''. (). * 1997 (coedited with
Roger Kimball Roger Kimball (born 1953) is an American art critic and conservative social commentator. He is the editor and publisher of ''The New Criterion'' and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball first gained notice in the early 1990s with the public ...
). ''The Future of the European Past''. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. * 1999. ''The Twilight of the Intellectuals: Culture and Politics in the Era of the Cold War''. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. * 2002 (coedited with
Roger Kimball Roger Kimball (born 1953) is an American art critic and conservative social commentator. He is the editor and publisher of ''The New Criterion'' and the publisher of Encounter Books. Kimball first gained notice in the early 1990s with the public ...
). ''The Survival of Culture: Permanent Values in a Virtual Age''. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee (). * 2003,
Remembering the Gulag
(review of
Anne Applebaum Anne Elizabeth Applebaum (born July 25, 1964) is an American journalist and historian. She has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. She has worked at ''The Econ ...
, 2003. ''Gulag: A History'', Doubleday), ''The New Criterion 21 (9)'': * 2006 ''The Triumph of Modernism: The Art World, 1985-2005'' ()


References


External links


''New Criterion'' biography



Hilton Kramer, A Man of Arts & Letters
''
The New York Sun ''The New York Sun'' is an American online newspaper published in Manhattan; from 2002 to 2008 it was a daily newspaper distributed in New York City. It debuted on April 16, 2002, adopting the name, motto, and masthead of the earlier New Yor ...
'', June 9, 2006.
Hilton Kramer dies at 84; polarizing but widely read art critic
''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'', March 28, 2012.
Obituary: Hilton Kramer, art critic and neoconservative
World Socialist Web Site The World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) is the website of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). It describes itself as an "online newspaper of the international Trotskyist movement". The WSWS publishes articles and analys ...
May 3, 2012
The critic who makes them cower
'' The Hour'', June 28, 1995.
Hilton Kramer and the 'Correction of Taste'
''
Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'', March 27, 2012.
OPEN EVENT: Hilton Kramer Memorial

the legacy of Hilton Kramer

Kramer of federal funding of the arts

Jed Perl at The New Republic April 11 2012 How Hilton Kramer Got Lost in the Culture Wars

Terry Teachout at the Wall Street Journal April 12 2012 When Criticism is No Laughing Matter

Hilton Kramer & the critical temper; Roger Kimball; The New Criterion, May 2012
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kramer, Hilton 1928 births 2012 deaths American art critics Columbia University alumni Critics employed by The New York Times Critics of postmodernism Harvard University alumni Indiana University alumni National Humanities Medal recipients The New York Observer people People from Damariscotta, Maine People from Gloucester, Massachusetts Syracuse University College of Arts and Sciences alumni The Nation (U.S. magazine) people