Top Art Critic Roberta Smith Retires from theNew York Times

New York Timesco-chief art critic Roberta Smith is retiring after thirteen years in the role, thirty-two years since being hired as a full-time staffer, and thirty-eight years after she began writing for the newspaper, in 1986. The widely respected Smith penned more than 4,500 articles for the publication during her tenure there and gained a reputation for brilliant, incisive critique delivered in a manner that in its clarity echoed the Minimalism of which she was a fan. Named co-chief critic alongside Holland Cotter in 2011, she was the first woman to occupy that role at theNYT. Prior to her arrival there, she wrote for publications includingArtforum,Art in America,Artnews, and theVillage Voice. In 2019, she was named the inaugural recipient of the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award.

“Over more than 50 years, Ro has anointed the new, celebrated the overlooked, and held institutions accountable on many fronts, including representation and acquisitions, while bringing fresh context to marginalized areas of art-making, especially outsider art and craft,” saidNYTart editor Barbara Graustark in a statement.

“Roberta is a trailblazing critic whose brilliant reviews and recommendations have always guided my love of art,” added the paper’s culture editor, Sia Michel, in a statement. “As soon as I get home from a show she’s written about, I immediately reread her review to see what ideas I missed.”

Though she will have far fewer writing deadlines to meet post-retirement, Smith, who is married to New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz, in an Instagram post admitted that she would still contribute an article to the Times every few months. “I will have more time to pursue my number one interest, which is going to galleries and museums, looking at stuff,” she wrote. Noting that art had kept her young, Smith expressed an eagerness to look as well at live music, dance, and theater. “We who have art in our lives in any form are incredibly lucky,” she wrote. “See you at the galleries.”

Smith is the second renowned longtime art critic to depart from a major publication in recent years, the first being Peter Schjeldahl, who died in 2022 while still working at the New Yorker. The magazine replaced him with Jackson Arn. It is not yet clear whether the Times will attempt to find someone to fill Smith’s elephantine shoes.