NEW YORK, NY.- This November, Heni will publish the first of a two-volume compilation of writings by the leading American art critic and curator Robert Storr. The 672-page collection spans two and a half decades of Storr’s influential criticism, shedding light on some of the most consequential figures in modern and contemporary art, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Carroll Dunham, Eva Hesse, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Richard Serra, and Franz West. Informed by Storr’s wide-ranging knowledge and his lived experience as an artist in his own right, these reviews, articles, and essays have risen above the often specialized, theory-dense discourse of the past half century to speak meaningfully and movingly to a general audience.

One of the many hallmarks of Storr’s work, as demonstrated in Writings on Art 1980-2005, is the ability to approach art with open eyes and an open minded. A self-proclaimed “accidental critic,” Storr was introduced to the world of art criticism by writing letters to his great-aunt in New York City, with the majority of his education happening out in the world, beyond the rigid lines of a syllabus. Francesca Pietropaolo notes that Storr’s approach is “refreshingly non-ideological,” providing insights for scholars, students, artists, and exhibition-goers alike.




This major collection of Storr’s essays follows the 2017 publication of Interviews on Art, a compilation of his prolific conversations with artists, many of whom overlap with the subjects of this new compilation. In addition, Italian art historian of modern and contemporary art, Francesca Pietropaolo edited and wrote introductions for both of Storr’s books.

Born in Portland, Maine, Robert Storr attended Swarthmore College as member of the class of 1972, studying History and French. He went on to earn his M.F.A in Art from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1978. However, much of Storr’s knowledge of art criticism came from his immersion outside the classroom in the Manhattan art scene. Beginning in 1968 as a freshman at Swarthmore, he met “everyone who was anyone” in the world of painting, sculpture, music, dance, and literature. Among these figures were then-director of the Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA, William Rubin, Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Frank Stella, George Segal, Jasper Johns, and Lee Krasner.

In 1990, Storr began working as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art in the department of painting and sculpture. He soon rose to the role of senior curator, where he remained until 2002. In 1981, he began contributing to Art in America in addition to writing frequently for Artforum, Parkett, Art Press (Paris), and Frieze (London). His writing has appeared in countless books and exhibition catalogs. Storr led the Yale University School of Art as Dean from 2006 to 2016, and he continues to teach today.

Storr has received a Penny McCall Foundation Grant for painting, a Norton Family Foundation Curator Grant, and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship. He has earned honorary doctorates from the Art Institute of Chicago, Maine College of Art, Swarthmore College, the University of the Arts London, the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design and the Montserrat College of Art. In 2000 the French Ministry of Culture awarded Storr with the rank of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. Storr became the first American appointed as the director of the Venice Biennale, organizing one of the most far-reaching and well-attended exhibitions to date, titled “Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense.”