Oral history interview with Dore Ashton, 2015

Biographical Note

Dore Ashton was born in Newark, NJ. She was an art critic, professor, and writer who authored more than thirty books on art. She began her professional career as a writer for the New York Times, and went on to teach at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), and Cooper Union in New York, and was a senior critic in painting and printmaking at Yale. She died in 2017

Scope and Contents

Dore Ashton describes her educational path to art history, from undergraduate studies at the University of Wisconsin to graduate school at Harvard. She discusses the art world she wrote about and participated in during her years at the New York Times and early years at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), especially the group informally known as the Abstract Expressionists in the early 1950s. She talks about the changes to the New York City art world through the late 1960s and early 1970s and the impact of commercialism on art through the time of the interview. She discusses her role as a reporter and art writer, and shares some thoughts on her role as an educator

Subjects

• Abstract expresionism.
• Art critics--Interviews.
• Artists--New York (State)--New York--20th century.
• Ashton, Dore--Interviews.
• Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.
• Interviews.
• New York Times Company.
• Oral histories (literary works)
• Rauschenberg, Robert, 1925-2008.
• School of Visual Arts (New York, N.Y.)
• Sinclair, Sara, interviewer.

Access Conditions

Copyright by the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York and Robert Rauschenberg Foundation