Summary: David Ward, historian at NPG, discusses art critic Clement Greenberg. Art critic and public intellectual Clement Greenberg was one of the most important advocates for American abstract painting after World War II. Championing such artists as Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, and especially Jackson Pollock, Greenberg provided the art-historical background to what he called "abstract expressionism." Pugnacious and driven by a sense of cultural mission, Greenberg, in his criticism and in articles like "'American Type' Painting" (1955), became the model of the engaged intellectual, making as many enemies as he did friends. As he said, "The first obligation of an art critic is to deliver value judgments." The art world eventually turned on Greenberg, but his four volumes of collected writings are an unmatched survey of American art and culture in the mid-twentieth century. Rene Bouche's 1955 portrait of Greenberg was praised as an abstraction "softening the edges of representation." Recorded at NPG, March 4, 2010. Image info: Clement Greenberg / Rene Bouche / Oil on canvas, 1955 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Denise Bouche Fitch
