Dore Ashton (May 21, 1928 – January 30, 2017) was a writer, professor and critic on modern and contemporary art.
Ashton was born in Newark, New Jersey, on May 21, 1928. [1] [2] She was the author or editor of more than thirty books on art, including Noguchi East and West, About Rothko, American Art Since 1945, The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning [3] and Picasso On Art. [4] Ashton also contributed to many publications, including Art Digest. and worked as an art critic at The New York Times. [5] [6] Ashton was one of the New York art critics who championed the New York School, whose members also included Harold Rosenberg and Barbara Rose. [7] Ashton's 1983 work on Mark Rothko, About Rothko, remains a source of much discussion about the artist. [8] Ashton's last book, David Rankin: The New York Years, on artist David Rankin was published in 2013. [9]
Ashton was a professor of art history at the Cooper Union in New York City and a senior critic in painting and printmaking at Yale. [2] [10] Ashton received an M.A. from Harvard University.
Ashton died on January 30, 2017, at the age of 88 in the Bronx, New York City, New York. [11]
Ashton received numerous awards, including Guggenheim Foundation Fellowships in 1963 and 1969, [12] the Frank J. Mather Award for art criticism from the College Art Association in 1963 and a Ford Foundation Award in 1965. [4]