Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jun 7, 2026

Roberta Smith

Roberta Smith is co-chief art critic of The New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times.

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Jun 7, 2026
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Roberta Smith
Smith in 2014
Smith in 2014
Born1948 (age 77–78)
New York City, US
OccupationArt critic
EducationGrinnell College
Period1970s–present
SubjectArt
Spouse
​
(m. 1992)​

Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of The New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art.12 She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times.345

Early life and education

Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas,6 Smith studied at Grinnell College in Iowa.6 Her career in the arts started in 1968, while an undergraduate summer intern at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.6

Career

In 1968-1969, she participated in the Art History/Museum Studies track of the Whitney Independent Study Program (ISP) where she met and developed an affinity for Donald Judd and became interested in minimal art.78 After graduation, she returned to New York City in 1971 to take a secretarial job at the Museum of Modern Art, followed by part-time assistant jobs to Judd in the early 1970s, and Paula Cooper for the first three years that she had her Paula Cooper Gallery, beginning in 1972.

While at the Paula Cooper Gallery Smith wrote exhibition reviews for Artforum, and subsequently for Art in America, the Village Voice and other publications. She has written and spoken about Judd on many occasions throughout her career, and upon his death in 1995, penned his New York Times obituary.91011

Smith began writing for The New York Times in 1986, and became the newspaper's co-chief art critic in 2011.123 She has written many essays for catalogues and monographs on contemporary artists, and wrote the featured essay in the 1975 Judd catalogue raisonné published by the National Gallery of Canada. She writes not only about contemporary art but about the visual arts in general, including decorative arts, popular and outsider art, design and architecture.

Smith is a longtime advocate for museums to be free and open to the public.13 In 2012, she received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute.14 In 2017, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago awarded Smith her second honorary doctorate.15

Awards and honors

Personal life

Smith married Jerry Saltz, senior art critic for New York magazine, in 1992.19 The couple live in an apartment in Greenwich Village.1920

References

References

  1. "Roberta Smith". The New York Times. March 15, 2018. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 18, 2018.
  2. Christopher Bolen, "Roberta Smith & Jerry Saltz", Interview magazine, undated.
  3. "Roberta Smith and Holland Cotter Named Co-Chief Art Critics of The New York Times". Observer. September 14, 2011. Retrieved March 18, 2018.
  4. Articles in The New York Times, accessed May 18, 2009
  5. Interview in the Brooklyn Rail, accessed May 18, 2009
  6. Sandler, Irving (April 6, 2009). "Roberta Smith with Irving Sandler". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved September 11, 2019. I'm afraid this was especially true when I went to Grinnell [College in Grinnell, Iowa]. I wrote the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington to see about being in their summer intern program. They accepted me, although they were a bit startled to have someone come all the way from Kansas
  7. Art., Whitney Museum of American (2008). Independent study program : 40 years : Whitney Museum of American Art, 1968-2008 (1st ed.). New York: Whitney Museum of American Art. ISBN 9780874271584. OCLC 262737522.
  8. "Local History: Donald Judd Design Objects". Judd Foundation. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  9. Smith, Roberta (April 24, 2006). "Christie's Presale Show: Light and Space Enough to Really See Judd". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  10. Smith, Roberta (February 26, 1995). "ART; The World According to Judd". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  11. Stevens, Mary Clare. "Roberta Smith with Jarrett Earnest". The Brooklyn Rail. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  12. Pilat, Kasia (February 28, 2018). "From 'Vicious' to Celebratory: The Times's Reviews of Judy Chicago's 'The Dinner Party'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 18, 2018.
  13. Cotter, Holland; Smith, Roberta (January 4, 2018). "The Met Should Be Open to All. The New Pay Policy Is a Mistake". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  14. "Roberta Smith to Accept Honorary Doctorate, Holland Cotter at Work on Book". Observer. May 2, 2012. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  15. "SAIC Announces its 2017 Commencement Speaker and Honorary Doctorate Recipients". School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  16. "Awards". The College Art Association. Retrieved October 11, 2010.
  17. "The Vera List Center for Arts and Politics | Roberta Smith Criticism A Life Sentence". veralistcenter.org. Retrieved March 18, 2018.
  18. "Roberta Smith - American Academy". American Academy. Retrieved March 18, 2018.
  19. "Roberta Smith & Jerry Saltz". Interview Magazine. December 9, 2013. Retrieved January 18, 2019.
  20. "Jerry Saltz and the Future of the Critic-Artist | artnet News". artnet News. December 9, 2016. Retrieved March 18, 2018.