Robert L. Pincus, PhD is a long-time art critic in San Diego. He teaches at California State University, Long Beach and the University of San Diego. He served as the art critic of The San Diego Union-Tribune for 25 years. Find him on YouTube @ArtWithBobPincus.
Bob is open to talks on art criticism, how to write about art, and contemporary art history.
rlpincus@att.net
2024
Artist’s Statement Workshop, artists creating projects for INSITE, a binational nonprofit organization
2023
Writing an Artist’s Statement, a talk and workshop hosted by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council
2022
Artist Panel Discussion about Fiaya Fredman with Suda House, Alfred Pagano, Allwyn O’Mara at the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library, October 22
Writing an Artist’s Statement, a talk and workshop hosted by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council
2021
Writing an Artist’s Statement, a talk and workshop hosted by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council
2019
Moderator for Contemporary Art and Social Responsibility with Liza Lou, Joyce Cutler-Shaw Dialogues in Art & Architecture at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library in San Diego, April 4 and 25
Writing an Artist’s Statement, Building a Professional Portfolio, and How to Provide a Healthy Critical Review, a Lunch and Learn series hosted by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council, March 8, 2019
Building a Professional Portfolio, a Lunch and Learn hosted by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council, March 8, 2019
2018
A Conversation with Jennifer Spencer of The Artist Portrait Project: A Photographic Memoir of Portraits Sessions with San Diego Artists 2006-2016 at The Book Catapult, September 19
Critics & Collectors Panel at Artspace in Shreveport, LA, September 12
Moderator for the Joyce Cutler-Shaw Dialogues in Art & Architecture at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library in San Diego, May 9
“Real Life, Ideal Life: Thomas Eakins, Eastman Johnson, and George Inness in the 1870s and 1880s,” for the Guest Lecture and Tour Series at The San Diego Museum of Art, April 20
2017
Moderator for the Joyce Cutler-Shaw Dialogues in Art & Architecture at the Athenaeum Music and Arts Library in San Diego, February 7, March 7 and April 4
2015
Christel DeHaan Family Foundation Visiting Artist Lecture, at the Herron School of Art + Design, January 8
2014
Moderator for Placemaking: Public Arts’s Role in Creating Community, a forum on public art, San Diego Mesa College, October 30
Conversations on Criticism: The Future of Intelligent Writing in the Arts, symposium on this theme with national variety of critics and arts professionals; served as organizer, moderator and keynote speaker, Artspace, Shreveport, Louisiana, August 6 – 8
Moderated and organized “Meet the Artists, from The San Diego Foundation in support of the Creative Catalyst Program grantees, February 20
2013
The Art of Art Criticism, for Artful Conversations at the San Diego Public Library, December 10
A Framework for Judgment: Criticism in Architecture and the Visual Arts, with Christopher Hawthorne and Leah Ollman, moderated by Cathryn Copper, November 1
The Future of Art Criticism, for the Gotthelf Art Gallery Kick Off Event, July
2012
VIDEO: Arts Show: Public Art, with guest host Pat Launer, Iris Strauss, and Joyce Cutler Shaw for KPBS News, May 3
Arts Journalism In The Age of the HuffingtonPost, with Kimberly Brooks and John Seed at Mt. San Jacinto College, March 29
2011
A talk on the role of the art critic and presentation of prizes in juried exhibition, “Impromptu,” Artspace, Shreveport, Louisiana, April 2
What Women Want! Group Exhibition at the Lyceum Theatre Gallery in San Diego for the Feminist Image Group (FIG)
2010
Question and Answer: Robert Pincus with Deloss McGraw, a discussion with Deloss McGraw on ‘Recent Paintings in Response to Gunter Grass’ The Tin Drum at the William D. Cannon Gallery in Carlsbad, November 20
Book Review Panel, San Diego County Library Book Festival, October 9
Accordance of Disciplines: Artist Ruben Ochoa and Architect Teddy Cruz with Art Critic, Robert Pincus, Moderator, The Bronowski Art & Science Forum, La Jolla, October 6
The Cultural Scene, sponsered by Beth Israel of San Diego, April 15
Inside the World of the Outsider Artist, panel, San Diego Repertory Theater, October 3
Conversations on Beauty: Beauty for Change, panel, San Diego Museum of Art, June 22
2000’s
San Diego Museum of Art Evening Encounters: Judy Chicago, a lecture at the Old Globe Theater, May 18, 2009
Snapshots: Changing Perspectives in the San Diego Art Scene, a panel atArt Produce Gallery, February 21, 2009
Art Museum Night at Permanent Collection, a panel at Mo’olelo at 10th Avenue Theater in San Diego, March 1, 2008
Collectors on Collecting, host and interviewer for panel at the San Diego Museum of Art, November 16, 2006
Pleasures of Being a Generalist: Two Decades as an Art Critic, a lecture sponsored by the Art & Science Forum at The Salk Institute in La Jolla, June 1, 2006
Why I Still Do What I Do – A Quarter Century As An Art Critic, a lecture at the San Diego Museum of Art, February 18, 2005
The State of Public Art in San Diego, a lecture sponsored by the Friends of the Stuart Collection, at the University of California in San Diego, September 17, 2004
Beyond Border Art, with Betti-Sue Hertz, Mark Quint, and Ruben Ortiz-Torres for the UCSD’s Open Studios, 2002
Anatomy of Taste: One Critic’s Take on Art Past and Present, a lecture for The Wednesday Club, San Diego, January 20, 2002
1990’s
Life and Death on a Grand Scale: The Art of Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, a lecture at the Nevada Museum of Art, May 6, 1999
The Making of Manuel Neri, a lecture at the Orange County Museum of Art, February 17, 1997
A Celebration of Manuel Neri’s Work, moderated a conversation with Manuel Neri and Nathan Oliveira at the San Jose Museum of Art, September 7, 1997
Stories in Sculpture: Four Decades of the Art of Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, a lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, November 6, 1994
On a Scale That Competes with the World: The Art of Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz, a lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, February 19, 1991
Twice Born Images: The Art of John Baldessari, a lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, May 13, 1990
‘Quality Material …’: Duchamp Disseminated in the Sixties and Seventies, a lecture at the Santa Monica Public Library, December 6, 1990
1980’s
Art and Criticism: Who Influences Whom, a lecture at Santa Barbara Museum of Contemporary Art, October 28, 1989
Public Art, a lecture the National Association of Schools of Art and Design Convention in San Diego, October 20, 1988
Populism in the Fine Arts, co-organizer and moderator, symposium funded by National Endowment for the Arts at University of Southern California, February 27, 1988
Speaking of the Arts: Artists, Patrons, Critics, a televised lecture with Edward Albee and Wayne Thiebaud, filmed at San Diego State University, February 28, 1987
Art as Artifact: The Rise of Historicism in Southern California Painting and Sculpture, a lecture, Timken Museum of Art, Nov. 9, 1985 and the Newport Harbor Art Museum, November 19, 1985
Contemporary Art Criticism: Theory and Practice, a lecture at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, July 7, 1984
New Image Art and Its Sources in Popular Culture, a lecture for Collecting Contemporary Art: Practical, Legal and Philosophical Aspects, a symposium at the University of California in Los Angeles, April 24, 1982
Edward Kienholz: Assemblages and Tableaux, 1959-1982, a lecture at the Newport Harbor Art Museum in Newport Beach, Ca., April 18, 1982
Robert L. Pincus 