Clement Greenberg

"Clement Greenberg is, internationally, the best-known American art critic popularly considered to be the man who put American vanguard painting and sculpture on the world map. . . . An important book for everyone interested in modern painting and sculpture."—The New York Times

Critical Essays

Art and Culture

A giant of 20th century art criticism, Clement Greenberg (1909-1994) set the terms of critical discourse from the moment he burst onto the scene with his seminal essays "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" (1939) and "Towards a Newer Laocoon" (1940). In this work, which gathers previously uncollected essays and a series of seminars delivered at Bennington College in 1971, Greenberg provides his most expansive statement of his views on taste and quality in art. He insists that despite the attempts of modern artists to escape the jurisdiction of taste by producing an art so disjunctive that it cannot be judged, taste is inexorable. He maintains that standards of quality in art, ohe artist's responsibility to seek out the hardest demands of a medium, and the critic's responsibility to discriminate, are essential conditions for great art. He discusses the interplay of expectation and surprise in aesthetic experience, and the exalted consciousness produced by great art. Homemade Esthetics allows us to watch the critic's mind at work, defending (and at times reconsidering) his controversial and influential theories. Charles Harrison's introduction to this volume places Homemade Esthetics in the context of Greenberg's work and the evolution of 20th century criticism.

Observations on Art and Taste

Homemade Esthetics

Clement Greenberg is widely recognized as the most influential and articulate champion of modernism during its American ascendency after World War II, the period largely covered by these highly acclaimed volumes of The Collected Essays and Criticism. Volume 3: Affirmations and Refusals presents Greenberg's writings from the period between 1950 and 1956, while Volume 4: Modernism with a Vengeance gathers essays and criticism of the years 1957 to 1969. The 120 works range from little-known pieces originally appearing Vogue and Harper's Bazaar to such celebrated essays as "The Plight of Our Culture" (1953), "Modernist Painting" (1960), and "Post Painterly Abstraction" (1964). Preserved in their original form, these writings allow readers to witness the development and direction of Greenberg's criticism, from his advocacy of abstract expressionism to his enthusiasm for color-field painting. With the inclusion of critical exchanges between Greenberg and F. R. Leavis, Fairfield Porter, Thomas B. Hess, Herbert Read, Max Kozloff, and Robert Goldwater, these volumes are essential sources in the ongoing debate over modern art. For each volume, John O'Brian has furnished an introduction, a selected bibliography, and a brief summary of events that places the criticism in its artistic and historical context.

Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957-1969

The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 4

Clement Greenberg (1909–1994), champion of abstract expressionism and modernism—of Pollock, Miró, and Matisse—has been esteemed by many as the greatest art critic of the second half of the twentieth century, and possibly the greatest art critic of all time. On radio and in print, Greenberg was the voice of "the new American painting," and a central figure in the postwar cultural history of the United States. Greenberg first established his reputation writing for the Partisan Review, which he joined as an editor in 1940. He became art critic for the Nation in 1942, and was associate editor of Commentary from 1945 until 1957. His seminal essay, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch" set the terms for the ongoing debate about the relationship of modern high art to popular culture. Though many of his ideas have been challenged, Greenberg has influenced generations of critics, historians, and artists, and he remains influential to this day.

Arrogant Purpose, 1945-1949

The Collected Essays and Criticism, Volume 2

This is the first collection of Greenberg's writings from 1970 to 1990, where he explores a surprising breadth of issues and mediums with philosophical insight.

Clement Greenberg, Late Writings

Clement Greenberg (1904-1994) was a lifelong New Yorkers. His works include Art and Culture and the four-volume Collected Essays and Criticism, 1939-1969.

The Making of an American Intellectual

The Harold Letters, 1928-1943

Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Press

Ceramic Arts Foundation

Articles by various authors arranged in 7 sections, with List of awardees and biographies.

Critical Writings on Ceramic History, Theory and Art

Ceramic Millennium

John O'Brian

"With the publication of the first two volumes of Clement Greenberg's Collected Essays and Criticism, we are at last on our way to having a comprehensive edition of the most important body of art criticism produced by an American writer in this century. The two volumes now available—Perceptions and Judgments, 1939-1944 and Arrogant Purpose, 1945-1949—bring together for the first time Mr. Greenberg's critical writings from the decade in which he emerged as the most informed and articulate champion of the New York School as well as one of our most trenchant analysts of the modern cultural scene."—Hilton Kramer, The New Criterion

Clement Greenberg

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