The late New Yorker art critic admonished the stringent “aesthetes” of his time for their blatant dismissal of the social and political contexts in which art emerges.

Debra Bricker Balken
Debra Bricker Balken is an independent writer and curator who works on subjects relating to American modernism and contemporary art. Her most recent books include Arthur Dove, A Catalogue Raisonne of Paintings and Things (Yale University Press, 2021) and Harold Rosenberg, A Critic's Life (University of Chicago Press, 2021).