The art critic Christopher Knight has is retiring after more than 40 years on the job, 36 of them at the Los Angeles Times. His final day will be 28 November.
One of the last full-time art critics left at a US daily newspaper, Knight has been a renowned, incisive voice in the art world for nearly half a century. He received a Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2020 and a $50,000 Lifetime Achievement Award for Art Journalism from the Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation the same year.
“It’s impossible to overstate the loss Knight’s departure represents for the paper and Los Angeles, or what a tireless, generous, inspiring colleague he is,” Los Angeles Times staff writer Jessica Gelt wrote of her colleague in a recent column. “He possesses a quiet, encyclopaedic knowledge of art, and in column after column he connected the dots of culture, history, folklore, civics and psychology in razor-sharp assessments of what a piece of art really means, or how a particular exhibition is poised to change the narrative around a longstanding or misguided idea. In short, he is everything a truly excellent critic should be.”
Knight, who was a three-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize before his ultimate win, was commended by the organisation for “work demonstrating extraordinary community service by a critic, applying his expertise and enterprise to critique a proposed overhaul of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma) and its effect on the institution’s mission”. Five of the ten articles listed as his winning work focused on the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor’s designs for a new Lacma building—the $720m David Geffen Galleries, opening next spring—including: “An open letter to Lacma architect Peter Zumthor: Stop dissing LA’s art.”
In 1997, the College Art Association awarded Knight the coveted Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism, the first time a journalist had won the distinction in 25 years. He also published two books of his work; an anthology, Last Chance for Eden: Selected Art Criticism, 1979-1994and Art of the Sixties and Seventies: the Panza Collection, which explores the holdings of the Italian industrialist Count Giuseppe Panza di Biumo. Knight also regularly appeared as a talking head in cultural conversations on broadcast media, including 60 Minutes on CBS and NewsHour on PBS. He was also featured in the 2009 documentary on the Barnes Foundation, Art of the Steal, and the 2025 documentary on Thomas Kincade, Art for Everyone.
In an email to Hyperallergic, Knight wrote: “I’ll keep writing, but after 45 years the daily journalism thing is done.” He added: “It has been a privilege, and it has been fun (mostly). Bless the readers!”
