GREENBERG, CLEMENT

GREENBERG, CLEMENT (1909–1994), U.S. art critic. After studying at the Art Students League (1924–25) and receiving a B.A. from Syracuse University (1930), Greenberg began contributing articles on art, literature, and politics to the left-wing journal Partisan Review, where he served as editor in 1940–42. Among other venues, his articles appeared in The Nation, a magazine for which he was the regular art critic (1942–49); Contemporary Jewish Record, where he served as managing editor from June 1944 until the final issue in June 1945; and Commentary, where he was associate editor (1945–57). Greenberg was one of the most influential art critics of the 1950s and 1960s. Along with critic harold rosenberg , Greenberg championed Abstract Expressionism. In particular, Greenberg was pivotal in the ascent of Jackson Pollock. After early consideration of social factors in his pivotal Partisan   Review article "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" (1939), Greenberg's formalist and often polemical mode of art analysis mostly ignored contextual considerations, a position largely rejected by subsequent art critics. In addition to writing on Jewish themes and subjects, Greenberg also wrote about or discussed his own Jewish identity. In a 1944 contribution to a symposium on Jewish American literature Greenberg commented that he "has no more of a conscious position towards his Jewish heritage than the average American Jew – which is to say, hardly any." Unconsciously, however, Greenberg believed that "a quality of Jewishness is present in every word I write." Along with his book Art and Culture: Critical Essays (1961), which includes "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," Greenberg wrote the monographs Joan Miró (1948), Matisse (1953), and Hans Hoffman (1961). His collected essays were published in four volumes (1986–93). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: D.B. Kuspit, Clement Greenberg: Art Critic (1979); J. O'Brien (ed.), Clement Greenberg: The Collected Essays and Criticism, 4 vols. (1986–93); F. Rubenfeld, Clement Greenberg: A Life (1997). (Samantha Baskind (2nd ed.)