John Ashbery's Overlooked Legacy as an Influential Art Critic

In 1960, while residing in Paris, renowned poet and art critic John Ashbery began his writing career with the Paris Herald Tribune, later contributing to ArtNews, Newsweek, and New York magazine. His unique critical perspective, which intertwined the ordinary with the mysterious, was shaped by surrealism, a movement he believed connected Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and color-field painting. His 1989 collection 'Reported Sightings,' curated by David Bergman, arranges essays by theme, commencing with Surrealism and Dada. Ashbery identified metaphysical parallels between artists like Joseph Cornell and Sol LeWitt. His 1974 poem 'Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror' was inspired by his review of a Parmigianino and Correggio drawings exhibition at the Louvre. Ashbery died in September 2017.