Charles Baker Finch Jr. (April 22, 1953 – August 24, 2022) was an American art critic who wrote for

Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City. It is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly-traded company based in Berlin that is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Ex ...

and

Coagula Coagula (Kate Godwin) is a character from DC Comics' ''Doom Patrol'' series, the first transgender superhero by the publisher. Created by Rachel Pollack in response to other poorly written trans comic characters, the transgender sexuality, les ...

Early life

Finch was born in

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

on April 22, 1953. His father was a business executive and his mother was a

buyer Procurement is the process of locating and agreeing to terms and purchasing goods, services, or other works from an external source, often with the use of a tendering or competitive bidding process. The term may also refer to a contractual o ...

and homemaker. He attended

Phillips Academy Phillips Academy (also known as PA, Phillips Academy Andover, or simply Andover) is a Private school, private, Mixed-sex education, co-educational college-preparatory school for Boarding school, boarding and Day school, day students located in ...

, received a bachelor's degree in political science from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

in 1974, and enrolled at

Union Theological Seminary Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (shortened to UTS or Union) is a Private college, private ecumenical liberal Christian seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with Columbia University since 1928. Presently, Co ...

, but did not graduate.

Career

In the 1980s, Finch hosted a radio program called ''Artbreaking'' on

WBAI WBAI (99.5 FM) is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station licensed to New York, New York. Its programming is a mixture of political news, talk and opinion from a left-leaning, liberal or progressive viewpoint, and eclectic musi ...

and was a one-time culture columnist for the

Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

online. He also operated a short lived art gallery in the East Village which he named ''Real Art''. In 1992, Finch began writing for Coagula Art Journal, and he became known for his often vitriolic and controversial reviews. He then wrote for Artnet from 1996 to 2012. While his defenders praised him as passionate, his writing was also criticized as overly gossipy or cruel.

Personal life and death

Finch was married twice, first to Mary Truitt, the daughter of sculptor

Anne Truitt Anne Truitt (March 16, 1921December 23, 2004), born Anne Dean, was an American sculptor of the mid-20th century. She became well known in the late 1960s for her large-scale minimalist sculptures, especially after influential solo shows at André ...

, and then to Marion Callis; both marriages ended in divorce, with his first marriage dissolving in 1981. With Truitt, he had a son, novelist

Charles Finch Charles Finch (born 1980) is an American author and literary critic. He has written a series of mystery novels set in Victorian era England, as well as literary fiction and numerous essays and book reviews. Life and career Finch was born in New ...

. On August 24, 2022, Finch, according to his son, either jumped or fell to his death from the window of his East Village apartment in Manhattan. He had been ill with cancer for about a decade, and a neighbor speculated that he may have been also distressed about his finances, as he lived in his apartment under

rent control Rent regulation is a system of laws for the rental market of dwellings, with controversial effects on affordability of housing and tenancies. Generally, a system of rent regulation involves: *Price controls, limits on the rent that a landlord ...

, and the building had recently been sold.

References

External links

Obituary, ArtNews
{{DEFAULTSORT:Finch, Charlie 1953 births 2022 deaths 2022 suicides 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers American art critics American male non-fiction writers Deaths from falls People from the East Village, Manhattan Phillips Academy alumni Radio personalities from New York City Suicides by jumping in New York City Writers from Manhattan Yale College alumni