Harold Rosenberg: A Critic‘s Life

657 Pages·2021·7.811 MB·English

by  Debra Bricker Balken

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The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2021 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or
reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical
articles and reviews. For more information, contact the Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2021
Printed in the United States of America
30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 03619- 9 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 74020- 1 (e- book)
DOI: https:// doi .org /10 .7208 /chicago /9780226740201
.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Names: Balken, Debra Bricker, author.
Title: Harold Rosenberg : a critic’s life / Debra Bricker
Balken.
Description: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021012758 | ISBN 9780226036199 (cloth) |
ISBN 9780226740201 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Rosenberg, Harold, 1906–1978. | Art
critics—United States—Biography.
Classification: LCC N7483.R655 B355 2021 | DDC 709.2 [B]—
dc23
LC record available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2021012758
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO
Z39.48- 1992 (Permanence of Paper).
to the memory of
Scott Kerr Bricker Sr.
and Arthur C. Danto

contents
Prologue ix
1 never had any dreams: borough park 1
2 in the landscape of sensibility: east houston street 15
3 a capacity for action: poetry: a magazine of verse
and the new act 26
4 we write for the working class: the american writers’
congress 51
5 you would have to be recluse to stay out of it:
art front 76
6 american stuff 99
7 myth and history: partisan review 115
8 partisans and politics 131
9 a totally different america: washington, dc 150
10 the profession of poetry: trance above the streets 180
11 death in the wilderness: the OWI and the american
ad council 199
12 notes on identity: VVV and view 215
13 possibilities 237
14 les temps modernes 256
15 an explanation to the french of what was cooking:
“the american action painters” 268
16 guilt to the vanishing point: commentary magazine 288
17 a triangle of allegiances: arendt and mccarthy 307
18 the tradition of the new 326
19 pop culture and kitsch criticism 341
20 play acting: arshile gorky 357
21 problems in art criticism: artforum 371
22 location magazine and the long view 393
23 the new yorker 412
24 the professor of social thought 452
Acknowledgments 479
Notes 485
Bibliography 587
Illustration Credits 607
Index 609
prologue
Harold Rosenberg always resisted the in- crowd. From the moment
he entered Erasmus Hall in 1919, an elite high school in Brooklyn,
he felt ostracized by the rivaling cliques of students who dominated
the social scene. Many came from rich families— Jewish and non-
Jewish alike— but he found no common ground with even the few
freshmen who lived in his own dreary neighborhood of Borough
Park. His father, while intellectually inclined, was a lower middle-
class tailor who had moved the family from Harlem when Harold
was eight to settle in a Jewish community where the way of life was
decidedly conformist. Religion became anathema to Rosenberg—
he hated the long, ritualized Saturday services— along with his fa-
ther’s bourgeois aspirations. By the time he attended Erasmus Hall,
his anti- authoritarian streak was intact. The only place he felt at
home was on the baseball field or when rowing on the lake in Pros-
pect Park.
To compound his sense of difference, Rosenberg grew to be 6 feet,
4 inches tall. By the time he was an adolescent, he towered not only
over his family but also over his teachers and fellow students. With
his radiant dark eyes capped by black, bushy brows and a prominent
forehead, he came across as a colossus, a sort of oddity (fig. 1). To
add to his eccentricity, his high- pitched, nasal voice always seemed
out of sync with his height. He lumbered through the corridors of
Erasmus Hall, where he became more and more introverted and
had little interaction with his classmates. As a result, studying be-
came his primary outlet. In today’s terms, he was a nerd. But once