John O'Brian is an

art historian Art history is the study of artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Traditionally, the ...

, writer, and

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

. He is best known for his books on

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradit ...

, including ''Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism'', one of ''The'' ''New York Times'' "Notable Books of the Year" in 1986, and for his exhibitions on nuclear photography such as ''Camera Atomica'', organized for the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; ) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located on Dundas Street, Dundas Street West in the Grange Park (neighbourhood), Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, the museum complex takes up of phys ...

in 2015. ''Camera Atomica'' was the first comprehensive exhibition on postwar nuclear photography. From 1987 to 2017 he taught at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

, Vancouver, where he held the Brenda & David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies (2008-11) and was an associate of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. O'Brian has been a critic of

neoconservative Neoconservatism (colloquially neocon) is a political movement which began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist Democratic Party along with the growing New Left and ...

policies since the start of the Culture Wars in the 1980s. He is a recipient of the Thakore Award in Human Rights and Peace Studies from

Simon Fraser University Simon Fraser University (SFU) is a Public university, public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It maintains three campuses in Greater Vancouver, respectively located in Burnaby (main campus), Surrey, British Columbia, Surrey, and ...

Early life and education

O'Brian was born in 1944 to Canadian parents in

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

, England. His father was a career officer in the Royal Air Force. His only sibling,

Peter Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a su ...

, is a filmmaker and producer. In 1969 he married Helen Worts, with whom he has three children: Melanie O'Brian, Amy O'Brian Wang, and Meghan O'Brian Braunstein. He also has four grandchildren. He was educated at New Park School in St. Andrews, Fife, and Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario, before entering

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university whose main campus is located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was founded by ...

, where he received an Honours B.A. in Political Science and Economics in 1966. At university, he played Varsity rugby. He worked at the Toronto firm of Harris & Partners until 1974, before enrolling at

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

to study art and literature. There, he began to publish

art criticism Art criticism is the discussion or evaluation of visual art. Art critics usually criticize art in the context of aesthetics or the theory of beauty. A goal of art criticism is the pursuit of a rational basis for art appreciation but it is quest ...

, poetry, and

art history Art history is the study of Work of art, artistic works made throughout human history. Among other topics, it studies art’s formal qualities, its impact on societies and cultures, and how artistic styles have changed throughout history. Tradit ...

. He received his PhD in

from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

under the supervision of T.J. Clark. While at Harvard, he was a research associate at the

Fogg Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...

and a proponent of "social art history", an approach that investigates social as well as aesthetic issues. "I'm interested in how art gets produced and looked at under the social arrangements of capitalism," he stated in an interview. His work has sometimes been targeted by neoconservative critics for mixing art and politics. O'Brian was also a member of the Pumping Station collective, a group of radical thinkers that met at the house of Gillian and Iain Boal, during the first half of the 1980s.

Teaching and lectures

O'Brian has taught at

, Toronto,

, Cambridge,

The University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada. With an annual research budget of $893million, UBC funds 9,992 projects annually in various fields o ...

, Vancouver, and

Ritsumeikan University is a private university in Kyoto, Japan, that traces its origin to 1869. In addition to its main campus in Kyoto, the university also has satellite campuses in Ibaraki, Osaka and Kusatsu, Shiga. Today, Ritsumeikan University is known as one o ...

, Kyoto. At the University of British Columbia, he was appointed assistant professor in 1987, associate professor in 1991, and full professor in 1998. He chaired the University Art Committee from 1993 to 2014 and the Program in Canadian Studies from 2002 to 2005. He also held the Brenda & David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies from 2008 to 2011 and was an associate of the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies. He taught undergraduate and graduate courses, in addition to supervising MA and Ph.D. theses. He also organized numerous field trips for students. Following the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States in 2016, he canceled a field trip to New York because, he said, "worms are crawling out of the ground all over America nd I willnot crawl with them." Students circulated a petition denouncing the cancellation. He has lectured across North America as well as in Europe, Australia, China, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Palestine, and South Africa. He was the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Visiting Lecturer in India in 1996-97 and visiting research professor at Ritsumeikan University in Japan in 2007.

Museums and galleries

O'Brian has been professionally involved with museums and galleries as a curator, exhibitor, researcher, advisor, and board member. From 1989 to 1991, he was a member of the board of the

Vancouver Art Gallery The Vancouver Art Gallery (VAG) is an art museum in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The museum occupies a adjacent to Robson Square in downtown Vancouver, making it the largest art museum in Western Canada by building size. Designed by Fr ...

, and from 1991 to 1998 a special advisor to the board of the

National Gallery of Canada The National Gallery of Canada (), located in the capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, is Canada's National museums of Canada, national art museum. The museum's building takes up , with of space used for exhibiting art. It is one of the List of large ...

, In 2020 was appointed an external advisor to the National Gallery. He has also been involved with the Harvard University Art Museum, Polygon Gallery, and the

Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in Vancouver, British Columbia, on the campus of the University of British Columbia. The gallery is housed in a building designed by architect Peter Cardew which opened in 1995 ...

. He maintains an occasional art practice. His work has been exhibited at public and private galleries: ''Octozilla'' (2018), produced with Gregory Coyes, was shown at the Vancouver Art Gallery; ''Ci elegans'' (2017), produced with Marina Roy, at SFU Galleries, Vancouver; ''Sixteen Nuclear Power Stations'' (2013) at the

, Toronto; ''Multiplication'' (1998) at the Catriona Jeffries Gallery, Vancouver; and ''More Los Angeles Apartments'' (1998) at

Gagosian Gallery The Gagosian Gallery is a modern and contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Larry Gagosian. The gallery exhibits some of the most well-known artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. As of 2024, Gagosian employs 300 people at 19 exhibiti ...

in New York and Los Angeles. "More Los Angeles Apartments unfolds as a peripatetic meditation on Edward Ruscha's photobooks, personally placing O'Brian in geographical and conceptual proximity to Ruscha's earlier work."

Publications

O'Brian is the author or editor of twenty books and many articles. Some have been translated into French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, or Japanese. Approximately half his publications focus on Canadian art and culture. His first book, ''David Milne and the Modern Tradition of Painting'', published in 1983, is the first in-depth study of the artist. His most recent book, ''The Bomb in the Wilderness: Photography and the Nuclear Era in Canada'', published in 2020, is the first substantial examination on what photography reveals about the size and shape of Canada's nuclear footprint.

The Bomb in the Wilderness: Photography and the Nuclear Era in Canada

The Bomb in the Wilderness contends that photography is one of the primary ways, if not the primary way, nuclear activities are interpreted and remembered. The book asks: Do photographs alert viewers to nuclear threat, numb them to its dangers, or do both at the same time? O'Brian argues that the impact and global reach of Canada's nuclear programs have been felt ever since the

bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civil ...

in 1945. The book has been referred to as a "foundational text".

Douglas Coupland Douglas Coupland (born 30 December 1961) is a Canadian novelist, designer and visual artist. His first novel, the 1991 international bestseller '' Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture'', popularized the terms Generation X and McJob. He ...

writes, "It finds beauty in grotesque places ndvalidates the reader's Cold War paranoia."

Camera Atomica

Guest curated by O'Brian for the

in 2015, ''Camera Atomica'' was "the first substantial exhibition of nuclear photography to encompass the entire postwar period from the bombings of Hiroshima in 1945 to the triple meltdown at

Fukushima Daiichi The is a disabled nuclear power plant located on a site in the towns of Ōkuma and Futaba in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. The plant suffered major damage from the magnitude 9.1 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11, 2011. Th ...

in 2011.""Camera Atomica," Art Gallery of Ontario
/ref> The exhibition included over 200 works ranging from photographs taken by the United States government of atomic bomb tests to images of anti-nuclear protests on the streets of Toronto, to images by artists, to photos of the utilization of nuclear technology in medicine. In addition to addressing key issues in the nuclear era, ''Camera Atomica'' aimed to make visible the interconnections between nuclear technology and the photographic medium. One critic concluded that going to the show was "a civic duty". Peter Galison wrote that "this remarkable show and catalogue promise to make clear that the age of the nucleus is also and always an age of the image."

Ruthless Hedonism: The American Reception of Matisse

Matisse was an emblematic figure in twentieth-century art, perhaps the emblem of an artist whose work is predicated on the sensual pleasures of looking. This study investigates how the artist and his work were received in America until his death in 1954. To promote his work, Matisse tried to show the media that whatever his reputation as an avant-gardist the conduct of his life was solidly bourgeois. He collaborated closely with museums exhibiting his work, cultivated private collectors, and played off dealers against each other. The book "casts a great deal of light on the way in which a picture becomes valuable… Patronage is as much a romance as a business transaction."

Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism

The four volumes of ''Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism'' have generated international interest and debate. The first two volumes appeared in 1986, the second two in 1993. In an editorial written for ''The New Criterion'',

Hilton Kramer Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and essayist. Biography Early life Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts into a Jewish immigrant family, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a b ...

expressed admiration for Greenberg's criticism but distaste for O'Brian's politicization of it. Following a 2009 symposium at Harvard University on Greenberg, Jeff Nguyen wrote:

"The symposium kicked off with a roundtable discussion featuring experts on Greenberg's art criticism:
Yve-Alain Bois Yve-Alain Bois (born April 16, 1952) is a professor emeritus of Art History at the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Education Bois received an M.A. from the École Pratique des Hautes É ...
(heavyweight in 20th century European and American art), Thierry de Duve (specialist in the metaphysics of art, made Duchamp difficult), Serge Guilbaut (specialist in art and politics during the Cold War),
Rosalind Krauss Rosalind Epstein Krauss (born November 30, 1941) is an American art critic, art theorist and a professor at Columbia University in New York City. Krauss is known for her scholarship in 20th-century painting, sculpture and photography. As a criti ...
(foremost champion of Greenberg, turned defector), John O'Brian (editor of the Collected Essays and Criticism). Benjamin Buchloch was the moderator. Holy Critics! How many more rock stars can you cram into a room? The only person missing from this esteemed company was
Michael Fried Michael Martin Fried (born April 12, 1939 in New York City) is a modernist art critic and art historian. He studied at Princeton University and Harvard University and was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College, Oxford. He is the J.R. Herbert Boone ...
. The University of British Columbia (Serge Guilbaut and John O'Brian) appears to be a happening place for art history."

Research and Archives

Until the early 2000s, O'Brian's research focused on modern art history and criticism, primarily in North America. Since then, it has concentrated on nuclear photography in North America and Japan. His archives include photographs, study notes, correspondence, interviews, journal reviews, and press clippings. Notable collections within the archives include correspondence with

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 ...

from 1981 to 1993 and atomic photographs (military, press, and vernacular), artworks, protest leaflets, propaganda pamphlets, corporate reports, government bulletins, newspaper front pages, and postcards. There is now a John O’Brian fonds at the

Library and Archives, Ottawa.

Awards and recognition

* Universities Art Association of Canada Lifetime Achievement Award, 2020 * Sports Hall of Fame, University of Toronto, 2016 * Thakore Award in Human Rights and Peace Studies, Simon Fraser University, 2011 * Honorary Doctorate from Trinity College at the University of Toronto, 2011 * Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, 2009 * Brenda & David McLean Chair in Canadian Studies, University of British Columbia, 2008-2011 * Visiting Research Professor, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto, 2007 * Killam Research Prize, University of British Columbia, 2000 * Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Visiting Lectureship, India, 1996-1997 * Senior Research Fellowship, Canadian Centre for the Visual Arts, Ottawa, 1992-93 * Janet Braide Award for outstanding scholarship in Canadian art history, 1990

Recent Exhibitions Organized

*''Bombhead'',

, Vancouver, March–June 2018. Curator. * ''The Nuclear Machine'',

Danish Institute for International Studies The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS, Danish: ) is a public sector research institute for independent research and analysis of international affairs, financed primarily by the Danish state. DIIS conducts and communicates multidis ...

, Copenhagen, May-June 2016. Co-curator. *''Camera Atomica'',

, Toronto, July–November 2015. Curator. *''After the Flash'', WORK Gallery, London (UK), October–December 2014. Co-curator. *''Strangelove's Weegee'', Presentation House Art Gallery, North Vancouver, June–July 2013. Curator.

Selected publications

Books and Exhibition Catalogues

* '' David Milne and the Modern Tradition of Painting.'' Toronto:

Coach House Press Coach House Books is an independent book publishing company located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Coach House publishes experimental poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction. The press is particularly interested in writing that pushes at the boundar ...

, 1983. * ''Degas to Matisse: The

Maurice Wertheim Maurice Wertheim (February 16, 1886 – May 27, 1950) was an American investment banker, chess player and patron, art collector, environmentalist, and philanthropist. In 1927 he founded Wertheim & Co. Life Born to a Jewish family, the son of ...

Collection.'' New York and Cambridge, Mass.: Harry N. Abrams and Harvard University Art Museums, 1988. * ''Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism. 4 vols.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986 and 1993. * ''The Flat Side of the Landscape: The Emma Lake Artists' Workshops.'' Saskatoon:

Mendel Art Gallery The Mendel Art Gallery was a major creative cultural centre in City Park, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Operating from 1964 to 2015, it housed a permanent collection of more than 7,500 works of art. The gallery was managed by the city-owned Saskatoon ...

, 1989. * ''Voices of Fire: Art, Rage, Power, and the State.'' Co-edited with Bruce Barber and Serge Guilbaut. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996. * ''Ruthless Hedonism: The American Reception of

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual arts, visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a drawing, draughtsman, printmaking, printmaker, ...

.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999. * ''All Amazed: For

Roy Kiyooka Roy Kenzie Kiyooka (January 18, 1926January 8, 1994) was a Canadian painter, poet, photographer, arts teacher. Biography A Nisei, or a second generation Japanese Canadian, Roy Kenzie Kiyooka was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan and raised in Cal ...

.'' Co-edited with Naomi Sawada and Scott Watson. Vancouver:

Arsenal Pulp Press Arsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian independent book publishing company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company publishes a broad range of titles in both fiction and non-fiction, focusing primarily on underrepresented genres such as und ...

, 2002. * ''Greenberg Variations.'' Portland, Oregon: The Back Room, 2007. * ''Beyond Wilderness: The

Group of Seven The Group of Seven (G7) is an Intergovernmentalism, intergovernmental political and economic forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non- ...

, Canadian Identity and Contemporary Art.'' Co-edited with Peter White. Montreal: McGill Queen's University Press, 2007. * ''Atomic Postcards: Radioactive Messages from the Cold War''. Co-written with Jeremy Borsos. Bristol, UK: Intellect Books, 2011. * ''Strangelove's

Weegee Ascher (Usher) Fellig (June 12, 1899 – December 26, 1968), known by his pseudonym Weegee, was a photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography in New York City. Weegee worked in Manhattan's Lower Eas ...

''. Vancouver: Presentation House Gallery, 2013. * ''Camera Atomica''. Editor. London and Toronto:

Black Dog Publishing Black Dog Publishing is a British publishing company specialising in illustrated non-fiction books on contemporary culture. Topics covered by Black Dog include architecture, art, craft, design, environment, fashion, film, music and photograph ...

and the

, 2015. * ''Breathless Days, 1959–1960''. Co-edited with Serge Guilbaut. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 2017. * ''The Bomb in the Wilderness: Photography and the Nuclear Era in Canada''. Vancouver: UBC Press, 2020. * ''Through Post''-''Atomic Eyes.'' Co-edited with Claudette Lauzon. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2020.

Articles

*"Dead West: Mark Ruwedel and Sacrifice Zones," Deutsche Borse Photography Prize (London: The Photographers Gallery, 2019), 118-119. *"Motive for Metaphor," David Milne: Modern Painting (London: Dulwich Picture Gallery, 2018), 161-163. *"Clement Greenberg," co-authored with Jessica Law and Jeff O'Brien, ''Oxford Bibliographies in Art History'', 2016, www.oxfordbibliographies.com. *"Landscape as Fordscape," in ''Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic'' (Toronto and São Paulo: Art Gallery of Ontario and

Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo The Pinacoteca de São Paulo (Portuguese for "pinacotheca (picture gallery) of the state of São Paulo") is a visual arts museum focused on Brazilian art from the 19th century to the present day, in dialogue with various cultures from around th ...

br>Yale University Press
2015, ), 188–93.
Project
*"The Bomb, the Group of Seven, and

's G7 Series," in ''Douglas Coupland: Everywhere Is Anywhere Is Anything Is Everything'' (Vancouver and London: Vancouver Art Gallery and Black Dog, 2014), 69–71. *"

Morrice Morrice is a surname, predominantly of Scottish origin. Notable people with the name include: * Ian Morrice, Australian CEO * James Wilson Morrice (1865–1924), Canadian landscape painter * Jane Morrice (born 1954), Irish politician * Mike Morric ...

and Matisse: Bedfellows Under the Sign of Modernism," ''Morrice and Lyman in the Company of Matisse'' (Quebec:

Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec The Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (), abbreviated as MNBAQ, is an art museum in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The museum is located in National Battlefields Park and is a complex of four buildings. Three of them were purpose-built for ...

, 2014), 113–135. *"Sur le plateau de ''Docteur Folamour''," in ''Errances Photographiques: Mobilité, Intermédialité'', edited by Suzanne Paquet (Montreal: Presses de L'Université de Montréal, 2014), 185–200. *"On Photographing a Dirty Bomb," in ''The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada'', edited by Carol Payne and Andrea Kunnard (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011), 182–94. *" Ishiuchi Miyako Interviewed by John O'Brian," in ''Hiroshima by Ishiuchi Miyako'' (Vancouver;

UBC Museum of Anthropology The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia (UBC) campus in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada displays world arts and cultures, in particular works by First Nations of the Pacific Northwest. As well as being a major tourist ...

, 2011). *"Postcard to Moscow," in ''Postcards: Ephemeral Histories of Modernity'', edited by Jordana Mendelson and David Proschaska (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2010), 182–93, 222–24. *"Amerika Dropt a Bomb on Nevada," ''Open Letter: A Canadian Journal of Writing and Theory'' 14, No. 4 (Fall 2010), 63–77. *"Another Report on the Age of Extinction," ''

Canadian Review of American Studies The ''Canadian Review of American Studies'' is a triannual peer-reviewed academic journal concerning American Studies journal outside the United States. It is the only journal in Canada that deals with cross-border themes and their implications f ...

'' 38, No.1 (2008), 191–98. *"The Nuclear Family of Man," ''Japan Focus: Asia Pacific Journal'', July 2008. http://japanfocus.org/ (Re-published on '' The History News Network'') *"Bernard Smith's Early Marxist Art History," ''

Thesis Eleven ''Thesis Eleven: Critical Theory and Historical Sociology'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes six issues a year in the field of sociology. It has been in publication since 1980 and is currently published by SAGE Publications. Sco ...

'' (Australia), No. 82 (August 2005), 29–37. *"Anthem Lip-Sync," ''The Journal of Canadian Art History'' XXI/1 & 2 (2000), pp. 140–151. *"Shining on the Modernist Parade: The American Sacralization of Matisse at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1948," ''Coloquio Internacional de Historia del Arte'' (Mexico City) 20, 1997, pp. 771–805.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Obrian, John Canadian art historians Canadian male non-fiction writers Academic staff of the University of British Columbia Living people Harvard University alumni 1944 births Trinity College (Canada) alumni York University alumni