David Carrier
American philosopher and art historian
About David Carrier
Born 1944. David Carrier is an American art historian, philosopher, opinion journalist, teacher and art critic.
Work Carrier was the Champney Family Professor in the department of art and art history at Case Western Reserve University and was a professor of philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of Principles of Art History Writing (Penn State University Press, 1991), The Aesthete in the City: The Philosophy and Practice of American Abstract Painting in the 1980s (Penn State University Press, 1994), High Art: Charles Baudelaire and the Origins of Modernist Painting (Penn State University Press, 1996), A World Art History and Its Objects (Penn State University Press, 2009), The Aesthetics of Comics (Penn State University Press, 2000), and Museum Skepticism: A History of the Display of Art in Public Galleries (Duke University Press, 2006), and Wild Art with his partner Joachim Pissarro (Phaidon Press), among others. He is a contributor to Artforum, BOMB Magazine, and ArtUS.
He has written about the history and philosophy of art writing, raising questions about the relativism of art writing in different eras by comparing texts written about the same artwork and analyzing changing styles of interpretation.
Books Truth and Falsity in Visual Images (with Mark Roskill) (University of Massachusetts Press, 1983) Artwriting (University of Massachusetts Press, 1987) Principles of Art History Writing (Penn State University Press, 1991) Poussin's Paintings: A Study in Art-Historical Methodology (Penn State University Press, 1993) The Aesthete in the City: The Philosophy and Practice of American Abstract Painting in the 1980s (Penn State University Press, 1994) Nicolas Poussin: Lettere sull'arte (Editor, with an introduction; Hestia edizione, 1995) High Art: Charles Baudelaire and the Origins of Modernism (Penn State University Press, 1996) England and Its Aesthetes: Biography and Taste (Routledge, 1998) Garner Tullis: The Life of Collaboration (Garner Tullis, 1998) The Aesthetics of Comics (Penn State University Press, 2000) Rosalind Krauss and American Philosophical Art Criticism: From Formalism to Beyond Postmodernism (Praeger, 2002) Writing about Visual Art (Aesthetics Today) (Allworth Press, 2003) Sean Scully (Thames & Hudson, 2004) Museum Skepticism: A History of the Display of Art in Public Galleries (Duke University Press, 2006) A World Art History and Its Objects (Penn State University Press, 2009) Proust/Warhol: Analytical Philosophy of Art (Peter Lang, 2009)
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Important facts
People in David Carrier's life
Named in this biography and alive at the same time
Contemporaries
People whose lives overlapped David Carrier's
Frequently asked questions
Who is David Carrier?
American philosopher and art historian
When was David Carrier born?
David Carrier was born in 1944.
What is David Carrier's occupation?
David Carrier is an art historian, philosopher, opinion journalist, teacher and art critic.
What nationality is David Carrier?
David Carrier is American.
Sources & further reading
Cite this page
APA: Biography.guide. (2026). David Carrier. https://biography.guide/david-carrier/
MLA: "David Carrier." Biography.guide, https://biography.guide/david-carrier/.
Chicago: "David Carrier." Biography.guide. https://biography.guide/david-carrier/.
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