Blake Gopnik | |
---|---|
Born | 1963 (age 60–61) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US |
Occupation | Art critic |
Notable work | Warhol |
Website | blakegopnik |
Blake Gopnik (born 1963)[1] is an American art critic who has lived in New York City since 2011. He previously spent a decade as chief art critic of The Washington Post,[2] prior to which he was an arts editor and critic in Canada.[3] He has a doctorate in art history from Oxford University.[4] He is the author of Warhol, a biography of the American artist Andy Warhol.[3]
Blake Gopnik was born in Philadelphia in 1963, to Irwin and Myrna Gopnik, with whom he moved to Montreal as a child.[citation needed] He and his five siblings—Berkeley psychologist Alison, writer Adam, oceanographer Morgan, archeologist Hilary, and Melissa Gopnik, who manages a nonprofit—grew up in Moshe Safdie's brutalist housing community, Habitat 67.[5][6]
Gopnik is married to artist Lucy Hogg;[7] they have one son.[citation needed]
Gopnik was educated in French at the Académie Michèle-Provost and then trained as a commercial photographer.[citation needed] He studied at McGill University, where he received an honors B.A. in medieval studies, with a specialization in Vulgate and medieval Latin.[citation needed] In 1994, he completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford on realism in Renaissance painting and the philosophy of representation.[8]
After receiving his doctorate, Gopnik returned to Canada, where he held minor academic jobs, before switching to journalism. In 1995, he became the editor-in-chief of Insite, an architecture and design magazine, and was later hired as the fine arts editor at The Globe and Mail.[9] In 1998, he became the Globe's art critic.[citation needed] From 2000 to 2010, Gopnik worked at The Washington Post as chief art critic.[citation needed] He wrote more than 500 articles about art, ranging from China's terracotta warriors to Andy Warhol's work.[citation needed]
In 2011, Gopnik was hired as the art and design critic at Newsweek magazine and its Daily Beast web site.[10] He is also a contributor to The New York Times.[11]
In 2020, he published a comprehensive biography of Andy Warhol through HarperCollins.[12]