Barbara Rose, art historian with a colourful private life – obituary
She ranged from Spanish art to Minimalism, and married Frank Stella and lyricist Jerry Leiber before remarrying Richard DuBoff
Barbara Rose
Credit: Chris Felver/Getty Images
Barbara Rose, who has died aged 84, was an art historian, curator, critic, filmmaker and pioneer in several fields of scholarship, ranging from the art of Romanesque Spain to contemporary Minimalism.
She championed the history of American art, and her first book, American Art since 1900: A Critical History (1967) was published in fourteen languages. In the 1960s and 70s her “ABC Art”, published in Art in America in October 1965, was recognised as a pivotal text; comparing the ideas of Kasimir Malevich and Marcel Duchamp, she examined the evolution of those American artists who were soon to be labelled Minimalists – among them Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Frank Stella, Richard Tuttle and Andy Warhol.