https://matthewjamesholman.com Matthew James Holman Fri, 07 Feb 2025 15:45:38 +0000 https://matthewjamesholman.com en https://matthewjamesholman.com/Front-page Tue, 06 Sep 2022 07:43:56 +0000 Matthew James Holman https://matthewjamesholman.com/Front-page Matthew James Holman&nbsp; About&nbsp; Books Criticism Scholarship Commissions &nbsp; &nbsp; https://matthewjamesholman.com/About Sun, 30 Jul 2023 08:55:49 +0000 Matthew James Holman https://matthewjamesholman.com/About Matthew James Holman&nbsp; About&nbsp;Books Criticism Scholarship Commissions <img width="3767" height="5000" width_o="3767" height_o="5000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/b3745a56e8db1c1dd97eb6783ace44838363bd2aba1e76e8603230b7873c4ff1/230318_MatthewH0622.jpg" data-mid="186470265" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/b3745a56e8db1c1dd97eb6783ace44838363bd2aba1e76e8603230b7873c4ff1/230318_MatthewH0622.jpg" /> Matthew James Holman is a writer and academic, based in London. I write on literature and the visual arts, with a focus on conflict, diplomacy, democracy, and the avant-garde. I completed a PhD in American cultural history at University College London, and have held fellowships at Yale University, the Smithsonian, the Courtauld Institute (Terra Foundation for American Art Fellow), the Paul Mellon Centre, and the John F. Kennedy Institute in Berlin (Leverhulme Trust). My first book, Frank O’Hara and MoMA: New York Poet, Global Curator (Bloomsbury), which frames O’Hara as a key figure who shaped postwar American art’s global circulation and cultural diplomacy, is out now. I have written for major exhibitions and artist publications, including for the catalogue of&nbsp;Krasner and Pollock: Past Continuous at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (September 2026), and contributed essays on artists including Frank Auerbach, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, Christopher Le Brun, and Françoise Gilot, as well as Megan Rooney, Daniel Crews-Chubb, Noah Beyene, and Theodore Ereira-Guyer.&nbsp;I am currently working on a group biography of Black Mountain College. My art and literary criticism appears regularly in&nbsp;The Art Newspaper (where I am Commissioning Editor), as well as Apollo,&nbsp;Frieze, Financial Times, Literary Review, Jacobin, New Left Review,&nbsp;The Times Literary Supplement, and elsewhere.&nbsp; I am Lecturer in Modern Literature at the University of Hertfordshire and teach transatlantic art history at the Courtauld. My academic work—on subjects ranging from New Deal theatre to environmental poetics and Abstract Expressionism—has appeared in journals including Oxford Art Journal, Essays and Studies, Critical Quarterly, and The Journal of Modern Literature. For enquiries, please email me at matthew.james.holman@gmail.com. https://matthewjamesholman.com/Books Fri, 07 Feb 2025 15:45:38 +0000 Matthew James Holman https://matthewjamesholman.com/Books Matthew James Holman&nbsp;About&nbsp;Books Criticism Scholarship Commissions AS AUTHOR Frank O’Hara and MoMA: New York Poet, Global Curator (London: Bloomsbury, September 2025) <img width="1814" height="2721" width_o="1814" height_o="2721" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/57475e564cc088ff4a37821705ba4203521784f8129718233876239723bc325d/Curating-Modern-Life-vis-7.jpg" data-mid="226158489" border="0" data-scale="34" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/57475e564cc088ff4a37821705ba4203521784f8129718233876239723bc325d/Curating-Modern-Life-vis-7.jpg" />This is the first book to closely examine the curatorial work that the celebrated poet Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) undertook for the Museum of Modern Art in New York and abroad.Upon his premature death, the New York Times obituary ran with the headline: 'Frank O'Hara, 40, Museum Curator / Exhibitions Aide at Modern Art Dies – Also a Poet'. However, in the half a century since, O'Hara's fascinating career as a curator, where he oversaw exhibitions of the likes of Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, David Smith, and Joan Mitchell, among others, has been eclipsed by the critical attention given over to his poetry. Drawing on a broad range of unpublished archival material, the book reveals the impact O'Hara's curatorial work had both on the reception of American modern art abroad and on the curatorial profession itself.It focuses on his travelling exhibitions for MoMA's International Program, a vehicle for soft power during the fraught years of the cultural Cold War, exposing him to new art, artists, and cities, while developing important transnational networks far from New York, from Madrid to Venice, Zagreb to Otterlo. Bringing together close readings of O'Hara's poems and unpublished letters with a selection of archival illustrations, Holman argues for O'Hara's sense of exuberant continuity between life as a writer and a curator, an American and a cosmopolitan – revealing that he was so much more besides the quintessential New York poet. Advance Praise: “Although Holman writes (to our immediate joy) less like an academic than a good novelist, his conjuring of a formative American cultural moment is assiduously researched. It helps that his subject, Frank O’Hara, has an amphetamine personality and contagious passions.” –– Forrest Gander, Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and Pulitzer Prize for Poetry Winner “An extraordinary achievement. In thrilling prose that moves effortlessly between art history, literary criticism, and biography, Matthew Holman surveys the full scope of Frank O’Hara’s achievement as a curator. This book fills a crucial gap in the scholarship of 20th Century art.” –– Saul Nelson, author of Never Ending: Modernist Painting Past and Future (Yale University Press, 2024) “Matthew Holman is a writer who shares Frank O'Hara's protean talents, delving into the poet's many selves. He reveals how O'Hara used the museum bureaucracy to forge dizzy new vocations: Cold Warrior for American abstract art, and the leading art critic of his generation.”––Benita Eisler, author of O’Keeffe and Stieglitz: An American Romance (Penguin, 1991)“Frank O’Hara and MoMA: New York Poet, Global Curator brilliantly asks new aesthetic, historical and ethical questions about the status of O’Hara’s multifarious curatorial practice. Though written with a scholarly rigour that illuminates junctures between art historical scholarship and literary criticism, Holman’s richly researched and highly enjoyable book will reward any reader interested in interactions between art and poetry in the mid twentieth century.”–– Rebecca Birrell, author of This Dark Country: Women Artists, Still Life and Intimacy in the Early Twentieth Century (Bloomsbury, 2021) “As if I wasn’t jealous enough of Frank O’Hara standing still and walking in New York, now I get to be jealous of his trotting through Turin, Stockholm, and Zagreb. Holman narrates with pace O’Hara’s curatorial acuity and eye for beauty through plentiful evidence born of serious scholarly detective work, piecing together the archival trail from Venice to Berlin to Amsterdam and beyond. Just as important as the window onto the world of this fabulous writer, Frank O’Hara and MoMA offers a fascinating account of Cold War diplomacy through the artworks and paperwork crossing the desk of the 20th Century’s greatest courtier-poet. Much less than a united state operation, it turns out America’s soft power stapled together opportunities for influence on the fly, shooting out of the revolving door of government agents, financiers, and philanthropists an ambiguous vision of freedom and individualism. O’Hara was there, whispering in the ears of capital, singing the praise of artists over cocktails. Frank O’Hara and MoMA adjusts the set for future studies of O’Hara, seeing his influence on the walls of galleries across Europe and South America, as well as Manhattan.”–– Sam Ladkin, author of Frank O’Hara’s New York School and Mid-Century Mannerism: Perfectly Disgraceful (Oxford University Press, 2024) AS CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR <img width="1400" height="1708" width_o="1400" height_o="1708" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/7ef2509cd76f2ab0a79fc690566ccfae5185bc7610cfadf0d31c0ba812295da2/christopher-le-brun-gebundene-ausgabe-christopher-le-brun-englisch.jpg" data-mid="235721970" border="0" data-scale="39" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/7ef2509cd76f2ab0a79fc690566ccfae5185bc7610cfadf0d31c0ba812295da2/christopher-le-brun-gebundene-ausgabe-christopher-le-brun-englisch.jpg" /> Christopher Le Brun: The Speech of Light, Paintings 2013-2024(New York: Rizzoli, September 2025)One of Britain’s most influential living artists, Le Brun emerged as a significant rising star in the British art scene during the 1980s and continues to create works that are a celebration of light, depth, and the expressive potential of paint. This book presents an in-depth exploration of a discrete and compelling body of work over the past ten years. Le Brun’s large-scale paintings are characterized by their lyrical abstraction and often reference myth, history, and literature using a rich palette and expressive brushwork. Eachpage of this sumptuous book reveals the artist’s dynamic use of color, texture, and form, capturing the essence of his creative process and the emotions embedded in his canvases, some light in touch and some involving dense accretions of paint. Featuring an extensive plates section of full-color reproductions, including five expanding foldouts, a critical narrative by art historian Matthew Holman, and a reference section of illustrated footnotes that shed light on Le Brun’s inspirations, this book provides a comprehensive look at one of Britain’s most beloved artists. ___ <img width="383" height="480" width_o="383" height_o="480" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/693d65ff718b643d81c08e69e920cb70dabc39ba79007fa3684bfe80a7c822a3/gmw_auerbach_cover.jpg" data-mid="235722029" border="0" data-scale="71" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/383/i/693d65ff718b643d81c08e69e920cb70dabc39ba79007fa3684bfe80a7c822a3/gmw_auerbach_cover.jpg" /> Frank Auerbach(Berlin: Michael Werner Galerie, May 2025)This monograph accompanies the first posthumous retrospective of Frank Auerbach’s work, spanning six decasdes of paintings and drawings by the German-born, British painter. The monograph was edited by the prominent art historian and long-time sitter and friend of Auerbach, Catherine Lampert, and the exhibition represents the first exhibition of his work in the German capital, the city in which he was born and left for England in 1939. Matthew Holman’s essay is entitled ‘Torn from the Book of Life’.&nbsp; ___ https://matthewjamesholman.com/Criticism Sun, 30 Jul 2023 08:56:04 +0000 Matthew James Holman https://matthewjamesholman.com/Criticism Matthew James Holman&nbsp; About&nbsp;Books Criticism Scholarship Commissions Stamped on These Lifeless Things | Those Passions: On Art and Politics by T. J. Clark Literary Review, April 2025 Don’t Knock Sheffield Plaster, April 2025 The trials and tribulations of putting together Lucian Freud’s catalogue raissonné The Art Newspaper, April 2025 Interview with Louise Giovanelli The Art Newspaper, March 2025 Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Love of the Alps Celebrated in New Exhibition The Art Newspaper, December 2024 Remembering Frank Auerbach The Art Newspaper, November 2024 The Human Element: On Emily Kraus Plus, October 2024 Doing This, Doing That The&nbsp;Poetry Review, October 2024 Dometic Bliss with Jonas Wood Plaster, October 2024 The Big Review: 14th-century Siena is Magnificent at the Met The Art Newspaper, October 2024 The National Gallery at 200: An Artist’s Gallery The Art Newspaper, July/August 2024 Megan Rooney’s Blue Fortnight Plaster, June 2024 At Guts Gallery, Artists Navigate ‘The Future of Loneliness’ (with Jess Cotton) Ocula, June 2024 ‘God Save the Team’: On Corbin Shaw’s Saint George’s Flags The Art Newspaper, June 2024 Remembering Frank Stella The Art Newspaper, June 2024 Remembering Richard Serra The Art Newspaper, June 2024 Here be Dragons: work, wealth and art on the French RivieraPlaster, June 2024 The Ardwick Realists Plaster, June 2024 Remembering Faith Finggold The Art Newspaper, May 2024 Eduardo Chillida at Hauser &amp; Wirth Menorca The Art Newspaper, May 2024 Rita Ackermann: “Painting as conflict” Plaster, May 2024 Interview with Chantal Joffe Plus, April 2024 Adam Pendleton: “Abstraction is a big question” Plaster, March 2024 Yoko Ono’s Powerful Protest Art Has Taken Over the Tate. How Does It Meet With Our Present Moment? ArtNet, February 2024 Ivory Towers The Times Literary Supplement, January 2024 Sabine Moritz: “Everybody has an August, everybody has a midnight” Plaster, December 2023 The Irreplacable Human at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark Plaster, December 2023 The Big Review: Philip Guston at the Tate Modern The Art Newspaper, November 2023Anthony Cudahy’s lessons in perseverence and saintly patience Plaster, October 2023 Richard Prince’s hall of smoke and mirrors at Gagosian London Plaster, October 2023 One Plus One The New Left Review Sidecar, May 2023 The Big Review: Peter Doig at the Courtauld Gallery in London The Art Newspaper, April 2023 Introducing Martin Wong Royal Academy Magazine, Summer 2023 Unliveable Lives&nbsp;The Times Literary Supplement, January 2023Interview with Richard Prince, Lousiana Museum of Modern Art, DenmarkThe Art Newspaper, January 2023 Remembering Peter Schjeldahl The Art Newspaper, January 2023 The Big Review: Alice Neel at the Centre Pompidou The Art Newspaper, October 2022 Barbara Ehrenreich was an Unabashed Socialist (with Jess Cotton) Jacobin, September 2022 Universal Energy SourceThe Times Literary Supplement, September 2022The Big Review: the Summer Exhibition 2022 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London The Art Newspaper, July 2022 Freedom and Constraint at the Whitney Biennial Burlington Contemporary, June 2022 Diane di Prima’s Revolutionary Letters&nbsp;Implore Us to Ask for More Jacobin, June 2022 The Big Review: Postwar Modern—New Art in Britain 1945-1965 at Barbican Gallery The Art Newspaper, April 2022 There’s rhythm in the whiteness: on Walter PriceBurlington Contemporary, August 2021Jennifer Packer’s paintings pack a punch at the SerpentineApollo, January 2021 Interview with Peter GizziThe White Review, August 2020 Sigmar Polke’s Unrealized Utopia at Michael Werner GalleryFrieze, March 2020Rhapsodic and Peculiar: 30 Years of Cy Twombly’s Sculptures at GagosianFrieze, November 2019‘You Have to Be There’: The Power and Presence of Robert Motherwell’s Large-Scale PaintingsFrieze, April 2019 New ways of seeing Andy WarholApollo, December 2018How Monet’s water lillies took root across the pond Apollo, July 2018 Remembering Irving Sandler, the ‘sweeper-up after artists’ Apollo, June 2018How Jane Freilicher found beauty in the everyday Apollo, May 2018 The making of modern America Apollo, April 2018 The art of advertising Apollo, January 2018 The battle for Picasso’s mind Apollo, January 2018 Remembering Irving Sandler, the ‘sweeper-up after artists’ Apollo, June 2018 The rich repetitions of Jasper Johns Apollo, November 2017 John Ashbery: poet and artist Apollo, September 2017 https://matthewjamesholman.com/Scholarship Sun, 30 Jul 2023 08:56:27 +0000 Matthew James Holman https://matthewjamesholman.com/Scholarship Matthew James Holman&nbsp; About&nbsp;Books Criticism Scholarship Commissions Glittering Like Cut Glass Journal of Modern Literature, forthcoming Summer 2026 Instruments of Imagined Power: New York’s Living Newspaper Unit and the Theatre of Welfare Essays and Studies 2024: Literature and Institutions of Welfare,&nbsp;edited by Jess Cotton, Boydell &amp; Brewer, December 2024 Cases of Citation: On Literature in Art (edited with Chloë Julius and Michael Green) Manchester Univesity Press, September 2024 ‘What, I wonder, does love have to do with an irregular rectangle?’ On Words &amp; Drawings by Mario Schifano and Frank O’Hara (1964) Cases of Citation: On Literature in Art, Manchester University Press, September 2024John Berger in Pablo Picasso’s Red PeriodCritical Quarterly, April 2023 Review of Souls Grown Deep Like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South&nbsp; Royal Academy of Arts, London, March 17–June 18, 2023&nbsp; Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art, Spring 2023 A voice-mail lyric for a discipline in crisis: On Ben Lerner’s ‘The Media’ Lockdown Cultures: The Arts and Humanities in the Year of the Pandemic, 2020-2021, University of Chicago Press, March 2023 Class, Crisis, and the Commons in Eileen Myles’ Late Work Women’s Studies, November 2022 ‘I Draw These Letters’ Oxford Art Journal, August 2017 https://matthewjamesholman.com/Commissions Sun, 30 Jul 2023 08:55:15 +0000 Matthew James Holman https://matthewjamesholman.com/Commissions Matthew James Holman&nbsp; About&nbsp;Books Criticism Scholarship Commissions <img width="1800" height="1200" width_o="1800" height_o="1200" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/ba6b8da31919c51be3c3387828ad4ad71b761519dbb9e060d4c4468b450b9a38/5_jamiuagboke_vinvin_vienna_2025.jpg" data-mid="237605715" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/ba6b8da31919c51be3c3387828ad4ad71b761519dbb9e060d4c4468b450b9a38/5_jamiuagboke_vinvin_vienna_2025.jpg" /> <img width="4819" height="4759" width_o="4819" height_o="4759" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/17140a3a739fe74d84cbebd25bf1df1e635f139c2c71344700508055dad65372/Halo1.jpg" data-mid="237605713" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/1000/i/17140a3a739fe74d84cbebd25bf1df1e635f139c2c71344700508055dad65372/Halo1.jpg" /> <img width="803" height="1000" width_o="803" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/91a8da8b75b37b1ba7fc9e17d46dc984361c0a8338a34eee72b29db9449646d2/A1OLpmVleDL._AC_UF894-1000_QL80_.jpg" data-mid="223734018" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/803/i/91a8da8b75b37b1ba7fc9e17d46dc984361c0a8338a34eee72b29db9449646d2/A1OLpmVleDL._AC_UF894-1000_QL80_.jpg" /> <img width="842" height="1000" width_o="842" height_o="1000" data-src="https://freight.cargo.site/t/original/i/deb92ebd339560734c1665a64c692efc9772e8035477bb236acaefa7aaf33519/A13XJWXU9KL._AC_UF1000-1000_QL80_.jpg" data-mid="223733999" border="0" src="https://freight.cargo.site/w/842/i/deb92ebd339560734c1665a64c692efc9772e8035477bb236acaefa7aaf33519/A13XJWXU9KL._AC_UF1000-1000_QL80_.jpg" />