<p>Today’s Quotation is care of Peter Schjeldahl. Listen in! Subscribe to Quotomania on quotomania.com or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!</p> <p>Born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1942, Schjeldahl was a college dropout who fell into journalism with a job at the <em>Jersey Journal</em> in Jersey City at the age of 20. He spent a year in New York, befriending the poet Frank O’Hara, who was part of the New York School of experimental painters and writers.</p> <p>Schjeldahl once planned a biography of O’Hara, who died young in a dune buggy accident in 1966, but never completed it. The surviving interview tapes became the basis for the book <em>Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me</em>, a 2022 memoir by Schjeldahl and Alderson’s daughter, Ada Calhoun, exploring her complex relationship with her father. After a year in Paris, Schjeldahl returned to New York, in 1965, “an ambitious poet, a jobber in journalism, and a tyro art nut,” as he put it earlier this year. Though he had no background in criticism, Thomas B. Hess hired Schjeldahl to write reviews for <em>ARTnews</em>, kickstarting one of the field’s most storied careers.</p> <p>“I thought it was normal for poets to write art criticism. So I started doing that, and people liked what I did,” he told <em>Interview</em> magazine in 2014. Over the course of his nearly 60 years in the business, Schjeldahl won numerous accolades for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, and the Howard Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009, the <em>New York Review of Books</em> called him “our best—our most perspicacious and wittiest—art critic.”</p> <p>From <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/peter-schjeldahl-has-died-80-2197014"><u>https://news.artnet.com/art-world/peter-schjeldahl-has-died-80-2197014</u></a>.</p> <p>For more information about Peter Schjeldahl:</p> <p>“The New Life”: <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=31358"><u>https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=31358</u></a></p> <p>“The Art of Dying”: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/23/the-art-of-dying"><u>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/23/the-art-of-dying</u></a></p> <p>“Remembering Peter Schjeldahl”: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/postscript/10/31/remembering-peter-schjeldahl-a-consummate-critic"><u>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/postscript/10/31/remembering-peter-schjeldahl-a-consummate-critic</u></a></p> <p>“Peter Schjeldahl, New York Art Critic With a Poet’s Voice, Dies at 80”: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/nyregion/peter-schjeldahl-dead.html"><u>https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/nyregion/peter-schjeldahl-dead.html</u></a></p> <p>“The Thrilling Mind of Wallace Stevens”: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-thrilling-mind-of-wallace-stevens"><u>https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-thrilling-mind-of-wallace-stevens</u></a></p>
Today’s Quotation is care of Peter Schjeldahl. Listen in! Subscribe to Quotomania on quotomania.com or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1942, Schjeldahl was a college dropout who fell into journalism with a job at the Jersey Journal in Jersey City at the age of 20. He spent a year in New York, befriending the poet Frank O’Hara, who was part of the New York School of experimental painters and writers.
Schjeldahl once planned a biography of O’Hara, who died young in a dune buggy accident in 1966, but never completed it. The surviving interview tapes became the basis for the book Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me, a 2022 memoir by Schjeldahl and Alderson’s daughter, Ada Calhoun, exploring her complex relationship with her father. After a year in Paris, Schjeldahl returned to New York, in 1965, “an ambitious poet, a jobber in journalism, and a tyro art nut,” as he put it earlier this year. Though he had no background in criticism, Thomas B. Hess hired Schjeldahl to write reviews for ARTnews, kickstarting one of the field’s most storied careers.
“I thought it was normal for poets to write art criticism. So I started doing that, and people liked what I did,” he told Interview magazine in 2014. Over the course of his nearly 60 years in the business, Schjeldahl won numerous accolades for his work, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, and the Howard Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2009, the New York Review of Books called him “our best—our most perspicacious and wittiest—art critic.”
From https://news.artnet.com/art-world/peter-schjeldahl-has-died-80-2197014.
For more information about Peter Schjeldahl:
“The New Life”: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=31358
“The Art of Dying”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/23/the-art-of-dying
“Remembering Peter Schjeldahl”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/postscript/10/31/remembering-peter-schjeldahl-a-consummate-critic
“Peter Schjeldahl, New York Art Critic With a Poet’s Voice, Dies at 80”: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/nyregion/peter-schjeldahl-dead.html
“The Thrilling Mind of Wallace Stevens”: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/05/02/the-thrilling-mind-of-wallace-stevens