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Robert Pincus-Witten (1935-2018) was an art historian, educator, critic, and curator in New York, New York.
Born in the Bronx, Pincus-Witten attended PS4, the New York High School of Music and Art, and The Cooper Union. During this time Pincus-Witten met his husband, Leon Hecht, who lived on the same block and was in the same kindergarten class at PS4. He also formed a lifelong friendship with high school classmate and artist, Ray Johnson. Pincus-Witten received a Master of Fine Arts and PhD from the University of Chicago and lived abroad in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Pincus-Witten became interested in art at a very early age and received recognition in the Regional and National Scholastic Art Awards in 1950 and 1952.
While living abroad and finishing his doctorate, Pincus-Witten accepted a teaching position at Queens College, part of the City University of New York (CUNY) network, where he taught art history courses until his retirement in 1991. Coining the term, "postminimalism," Pincus-Witten played a central role in explicating postmodern art as it emerged between 1960 and his death in 2018. He exhaustively documented his daily life on the front lines of the art world as a contributing editor for Artforum for nearly fifty years, including a stint as senior editor from 1973-1974. In addition to his long teaching career at the CUNY, Pincus-Witten worked for Larry Gagosian and Robert Mnuchin, curating exhibitions and writing catalog essays for their galleries. He was the author of several books, including Postminimalism (1977).
