As a scholar, my primary areas of research have been environmental and environmentalist art; my Earthworks: Art and the Landscape of the Sixties (University of California Press, 2002) was acclaimed by The New York Times Book Review as the “definitive history. ” The Boston Psychoanalytic Society & Institute awarded me its Julius Silberger prize for an inter-disciplinary essay published in American Imago as "Brother's Keeper: Robert Smithson's Anti-Elegiac Pictures." Inside the Spiral: The Passions of Robert Smithson (University of Minnesota Press, 2023), the first biography of Robert Smithson, won a Millard Meiss Publication Grant from the College Art Association. It has been praised in sixteen reviews or feature articles — so far — as “persuasively argued,” “suavely written,” and “a compelling psychobiography,” links to many of these are on the Books page. See (read) for yourself ~~ dive into Inside the Spiral!

I take pleasure in traveling to address diverse audiences with well-illustrated, dynamic talks. See the latest destinations on my home page and if you are near one, please come. And if not, invite me!

My photograph is @Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. At right, after lecturing at the Art Students League, I’m signing books for Mimi Gross, Smithson’s friend during high school years, and guitarist, singer, composer, and ardent Smithson fan Lee Renaldo; photo by Dirk Roundtree.

This painting is Willard Metcalf, detail of Sunlight and Shadows, 1888. That title of this darkly beautiful painting, in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, says it all.

I am an art historian, critic and lecturer based in New York City. Born in Berkeley, California, and a resident in the Bay Area for more than three decades, I was formed by that state’s mid-twentieth century progressive consciousness. I graduated from San Francisco State University, University of California Berkeley, and The City University of New York Graduate Center. This website lists my publications in books and periodicals (journalistic and scholarly peer-reviewed), lectures I’ve given, and podcast interviews. Many periodical articles can be accessed by clicking on underlined titles to bring up the text to read digitally or download, save, and print. If you would like to read a piece for which the text isn’t provided, let me know.

I am Professor Emerita at Bergen Community College, New Jersey, a member of the College Art Association, the International Association of Art Critics, the Authors Guild, Pen America, and several environmentalist organizations.