Roberta Smith

Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of The New York Times and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position at the Times.

Early life and education Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas, Smith studied at Grinnell College in Iowa. After graduation, she returned to New York City in 1971 to take a secretarial job at the Museum of Modern Art, followed by part-time assistant jobs to Judd in the early 1970s, and Paula Cooper for the first three years that she had her Paula Cooper Gallery, beginning in 1972.

While at the Paula Cooper Gallery Smith wrote exhibition reviews for Artforum, and subsequently for Art in America, the Village Voice and other publications. She has written and spoken about Judd on many occasions throughout her career, and upon his death in 1995, penned his New York Times obituary.

Smith began writing for The New York Times in 1986, and became the newspaper's co-chief art critic in 2011. In 2012, she received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2017, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago awarded Smith her second honorary doctorate.

Awards and honors 2003 Frank Jewett Mather Award for Art Criticism, College Art Association. 2009 AICA/USA Distinguished Critic Lecture. 2014 Marina Kellen French Distinguished Visitor, The American Academy in Berlin.

Personal life Smith married Jerry Saltz, senior art critic for New York magazine, in 1992.