Jerry Saltz Biography
Jerry Saltz is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for The Village voice, he received the Pulitzer prize for criticism in 2018 and was nominated for the award in 2001 and 2006. He is the recipient of three honorary doctorates, including from the school of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2008 and Kansas city Art Institute in 2011.
He has been a visiting critic at The School of Visual Arts, Columbia University, Yale University, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the New York Studio Residency Program.
How old is Jerry Saltz? – Age
The American art critic is 70 years old as of 19th March 2021. He was born in 1951 in Oak Park, Illinois, United States.
Who are Jerry Saltz Parents? – Father and mother
The American art critic was born and grew up in the inner city in Chicago, before moving to the suburbs after his father invented the Dexter Hand sewing Machine. His mother died when he was ten years old, shortly after he recalls a memorable trip to the Chicago Institute of Art. He is Jewish.
Jerry Saltz Education
The American art critic attended the school of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1970 to 1975 before dropping out. He founded an artist-run gallery in the city before moving to New York at 26.
Is Jerry Saltz in a relationship? – Spouse
Yes, the American art critic is in love. He is a married man. He lives in New York City with his wife Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic for the New York Times. They were married in 1992. They are both madly in love with each other.
Jerry Saltz Career
The American art critic has been senior art critic and columnist for New York magazine from 2006. Formerly the senior art critic for The village voice, he has also contributed to Art in America, Flash Art International, Frieze, and Modern painters, among other art publications.
In Seeing Out Loud, his collection of Village Voice columns published in 2003, he said he considers himself the kind of critic that Peter Plagens calls a “goalie,” someone who says “It’s going to have to be pretty good to get by me.” He has cited Manny Farber’s “termite art” and Joan Didion’s “Babylon” as well as other wide-ranging systemic metaphors for the art world.
His humor, irreverence, self-deprecation and volubility have led some to call him the Rodney Dangerfield of the art world. He has expressed doubt about art critics’ influence as purveyors of taste, saying they have little effect on the success of an artist’s career. Nonetheless, ArtReview called him the 73rd most powerful person in the art world in their 2009 Power 100 list.
In 2007, the art critic received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism from the college Art Association. In a 2018 interview, he maintained, “To this day I wake up early and I have to get to my desk to write almost immediately. I mean fast. Before the demons get me. I got to get writing. And once I’ve written almost anything, I’ll pretty much write all day, I don’t leave my desk, I have no other life. I’m not part of the world except when I go to see shows.”
Saltz uses Facebook more actively than many other art critics, posting daily questions and diatribes to his audience of friends, which numbered 94,039 people in December 2020. He has stated that he wants to demystify the art critic to artists and a general art audience. His posts are less polished and restrained than his writing for New York Magazine and vulture.com, and he has shared personal matters including family tragedies, career bumps and his diet.
He has used his page to defend the use of irony in art, arguing against adherents of “the New Seriousness”, whom he calls the “Purity Police”. In 2010, artist Jennifer Dalton exhibited an artwork called “What Are We Not Shutting Up About?” at the FLAG Foundation in New York that statistically analyzed five months of Facebook conversations between Saltz and his online friends.
In 2010, the art critic asked his Facebook friends about art studio (or office) door signs—and then later sought someone to compile the replies. The result was a book featuring he and dozens of his page’s followers’ quotes: JERRY SALTZ ART CRITIC’s Fans, Friends, & The Tribes Suggested ART STUDIO DOOR SIGNS of Real Life or Fantasy.
In 2015, the art critic was briefly suspended from Facebook after the site received complaints from users about provocative posts.
Jerry Saltz Net worth
The American art critic has an estimated net worth of around $1 million to $5 million as of 2021.