New York Times art critic to lecture at deCordova

Award-winning New York Times art critic Holland Cotter will give the 2018 Paul J. Cronin Memorial Lecture at the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum on Wednesday, May 2 at 6:30 p.m. 

One of today’s foremost art critics, Cotter is known for his wide-ranging reviews of art that are marked by “acute observation, luminous writing, and dramatic storytelling,” as described by the Pulitzer Prize committee. Cotter plans to speak on the vital role of art in our current social and political moment and will also address the importance of growing up in the Boston area.

“When I was a kid in the late 1950s and early 1960s, deCordova was where I first saw modern art—Abstract Expressionism. I loved it enough to try my pre-teen hand at it. For a short while I took drawing lessons in an upstairs gallery in the museum’s main building. As it turned out, the hands-on part didn’t last, but the love did,” Cotter said.

Cotter, a Weston native, is a co-chief art critic for the New York Times, where he has been on staff since 1998. In 2009, he received the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Cotter earned an A.B. from Harvard College, where he studied poetry with Robert Lowell. He later received an M.A. from the City University of New York in American modernism and an M.Phil. in early Indian Buddhist art from Columbia University, where he studied Sanskrit and taught Indian and Islamic art.

The Paul J. Cronin Memorial Lecture series was established in 1981 to consider topics broadly focused on changing attitudes towards 20th- and 21st-century art. The Cronin Lecture series is made possible by a generous grant to deCordova from the Grover J. Cronin Memorial Foundation.

Lecture attendees are welcome to arrive early for a casual reception with Holland Cotter at 6 p.m. Wine, beer, and nonalcoholic beverages will be served. Tickets (available online here) are $5 for deCordova members and students with ID, $10 for nonmembers. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.