Walter Robinson (artist)

Robinson was born in Wilmington, Delaware, on July 18, 1950, and was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma.{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/arts/walter-robinson-dead.html|title = Walter Robinson, Exuberant Art-World Participant and Observer, Dies at 74|last = Solomon|first = Deborah|date = February 14, 2025|accessdate = February 14, 2025|newspaper = The New York Times|url-access = limited}} He moved to New York City to attend Columbia University in 1968.[http://www.askart.com/askart/r/walter_robinson/walter_robinson.aspx Walter Robinson] Subsequently, he graduated from the Whitney Independent Study Program in 1973.{{Cite web|url=http://www.artspace.com/walter-robinson|title=Walter Robinson|website=Artspace}} He lived in SoHo in the 1970s and on Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side in the 1980s and 1990s,{{cite web|url=http://observer.com/2013/02/kicked-out-of-1993/|first= Walter |last=Robinson|title=Kicked Out of 1993|website=Observer.com|date=February 7, 2013}} and lived uptown with a studio in Long Island City in Queens.

Robinson was a postmodern painter whose work features painterly images taken from covers of romance novel paperbacks as well as still lifes of cheeseburgers, French fries, and beer, and pharmaceutical products such as aspirin and nasal spray.{{cite book|title=Walter Robinson: Paintings and Other Indulgences|editor=Barry Blinderman|pages= 144 |publisher=University Galleries of Illinois State University|date= 2016}} He also made and exhibited large-scale spin paintings in the mid-1980s, in advance of his colleague Damien Hirst.{{cite magazine|first=Michelle |last=Grabner|title=Walter Robinson, University Galleries of Illinois State University|magazine=Artforum International|date=March 2015|page= 286}}

A 2014 touring exhibition of Robinson's paintings included more than 90 works dating from 1979 to 2014. It premiered at the University Galleries at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, and subsequently appeared in Philadelphia at the Moore College of Art.{{cite magazine|url=https://news.artnet.com/exhibitions/walter-robinson-moore-college-413222 |first=Brian |last=Boucher|magazine=Artnet News|date=January 25, 2016|title=Walter Robinson's First Solo Museum Survey Opens in Philadelphia}} The show's final stop was at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in New York City in September 2016.{{cite magazine|first=Peter |last=Schjeldahl|title=Reality Principle|magazine=The New Yorker|date=September 26, 2016|page=10}}

Robinson's works have been exhibited at several New York galleries since the 1980s, including Semaphore Gallery{{cite magazine|first=Regan |last=Upshaw|title=Walter Robinson at Semaphore|magazine= Art in America|date= February 1985}} and Metro Pictures Gallery.{{cite magazine|first=Brooks |last=Adams|title=Walter Robinson at Metro Pictures New York|magazine=Art in America|date= May 1982|pages= 144–145}} An exhibition of his paintings, paired with a poem by Charles Bukowski, "There's a Bluebird in My Heart", was on view in Spring 2016 at the Owen James Gallery in Greenpoint, Brooklyn."Charles Bukowski / Walter Robinson", Owen James Gallery.

Robinson began writing about art in the 1970s, when he co-founded with Edit DeAk the art zine Art-Rite{{cite journal|first=Alan W.|last=Moore|author-link=Alan W. Moore|title=Art Worker: Doing Time in the New York Art World|journal=Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press|date= 2022|pages= 29, 56, 69, 75, 80, 89, 104-5, 109, 111}}{{Cite book|last=Boch|first=Richard|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/972429558|title=The Mudd Club|publisher=Feral House|year=2017|isbn=978-1-62731-051-2|location=Port Townsend, WA|pages=268|language=English|oclc=972429558}} in New York's SoHo art district.{{cite magazine|first=David |last=Frankel|title=The Rite Stuff: Art-Rite|magazine= Artforum International|date=January 2003}}

Robinson subsequently served as news editor of Art in America magazine (1980–96) and founding editor of Artnet magazine (1996–2012).{{cite web|first=Andrew |last=Russeth|title=Art Net: The Life and Times of Walter Robinson|website=Observer.com|date=January 24, 2012|url=http://observer.com/2012/01/art-net-the-life-and-times-of-walter-robinson-01242012/}} In 2013–14, he was a columnist for Artspace.com, where his seminal essay on "Zombie Formalism" appeared.{{cite magazine|first=Walter |last=Robinson|title=Flipping and the Rise of Zombie Formalism|magazine=Artspace Magazine|date= April 3, 2014|url=http://www.artspace.com/magazine/contributors/see_here/the_rise_of_zombie_formalism-52184}}

He also served as art editor of the East Village Eye in the early 1980s.{{cite magazine|first=Claudia Eve |last=Beauchesne|title=East Village Eye|magazine=Tunica Studio Magazine|number= 4 |url=http://www.tunicastudio.com/magazine/issue-no-4/articles/east-village-eye}}

Robinson was also active in Collaborative Projects (aka Colab) in the early 1980s,{{cite book|editor=Max Schumann|title=A Book about Colab (and Related Activities)|publisher= Printed Matter, Inc.|date= 2015}} acting as president for a short time and participating in The Times Square Show.{{cite journal|author-link=Alan W. Moore|first=Alan W. |last=Moore|title=Art Worker: Doing Time in the New York Art World|journal=Journal of Aesthetics & Protest Press|date= 2022|pages= 29, 56, 69, 75, 80, 89, 104–05, 109, 111}}

In the 1990s, he was a correspondent for GalleryBeat TV, a public-access television show.{{cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/2008/05/02/cindy_sherman/ |first=Joy |last=Press|title=I Dated Cindy Sherman|website= Salon.com|date= May 2, 2008}}

Robinson was married four times; his second wife, Beatrice Smith, was sculptor Tony Smith's daughter. She died from AIDS-related complications in 1988, and after her death, Robinson adopted her daughter. At the time of his death, he lived in Manhattan with his fourth wife, Lisa Rosen.

Robinson died from liver cancer (also reported as esophageal cancer) at home on February 9, 2025, at the age of 74.{{cite news |last1=Russeth |first1=Andrew |title=Maverick Painter and Critic Walter Robinson, Who Helmed Artnet Magazine, Is Dead at 74 |url=https://news.artnet.com/art-world/artist-writer-walter-robinson-obituary-2606724 |access-date=February 10, 2025 |publisher=Artnet |date=February 10, 2025}}{{cite web |title=Obituary: Walter Robinson: A Painter of Pictures and Arbiter of Critical Pleasures is Gone |url=https://whitehotmagazine.com/articles/arbiter-critical-pleasures-is-gone/6798?fbclid=IwY2xjawIXePdleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHZD-Ifr7C5Uo1A8uLbmxPDQC7EPO86Wezy_OsjPK8eXDBLts-cGaQaHA5g_aem_wQc4lN5qlY-B5RXl7lx2vA |website=Whitehot Magazine |access-date=February 11, 2025}}

{{Reflist}}

• McCormick, Carlo, & Walter Robinson, "Slouching Toward Avenue D", Art in America, 1982.
• Moore, Alan W. and Marc Miller, eds. ABC No Rio Dinero: The Story of a Lower East Side Art Gallery New York: ABC No Rio with Collaborative Projects, 1985.
• McCormick, Carlo, The Downtown Book: The New York Art Scene, 1974–1984, Princeton University Press, 2006.

• [http://theconversationartistpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2014-08-24T20_38_43-07_00 "Walter Robinson: artist and critic, former editor-in-chief of ArtNet Magazine"] at The Conversation: An Artist Podcast, August 25, 2014.
• [http://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/11/art/walter-robinson-with-phong-bui Walter Robinson interviewed] by Phong Bui at The Brooklyn Rail, November 2014.
• {{imdb name|9406401}}

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Category:1950 births

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Category:20th-century American male artists

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Category:American art critics

Category:American male painters

Category:American postmodern artists

Category:Artists from New York (state)

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Category:Deaths from liver cancer in New York (state)

Category:Artists from Tulsa, Oklahoma

Category:American magazine editors

Category:Columbia College (New York) alumni