Art Movements

In the late 1950s, a Manhattan-born college student was running from an art history course at Barnard to a George Balanchine ballet practice at the storied School of American Ballet on 82nd Street and Broadway. Soon, she began to make connections between the old-school Russian ballet instructors who taught her “ferocious point class” and were constantly “aspiring to an abstract ideal,” if a ruthless one, and the extending lines of Anthony Caro’s sculptures striving toward an arabesque. These rigorous studies in dance informed the work of the leading critic and curator of 20th-century Modernism, Karen Wilkin. Of course, Balanchine’s presence was just one instance in which Wilkin has brushed shoulders with masters of the arts throughout her lifetime. In this episode, she discusses the influence of her parents’ close friendships with New York’s prominent literary figures, from S.J. Perelman to Ruth McKenney, and artists like Adolph Gottlieb. She tells us about touring the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) with Kenneth