Holland Cotter

Holland Cotter (born April 9, 1947) is an art critic with the New York Times. In 2009, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.

Cotter was born in Connecticut and grew up in Boston, Massachusetts. He earned his A.B. from Harvard College in 1970, where he studied English literature under poet Robert Lowell and was an editor of the Harvard Advocate literary magazine. His first art course was an anthropology course on primitive art, which led to his first of many visits to Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Cotter earned an MA in American modernism from the City University of New York in 1990 and a M. Phil in early Indian Buddhist art from Columbia University in 1992, where he also taught Indian art and Islamic art. He has been a writer and editor for the New York Arts Journal, Art in America, and Art News.

Cotter was a freelance writer for the New York Times from 1992 to 1997 before being hired as a full-time art critic in 1998. Specifically hired for his expertise in Asian art, he is credited with exposing contemporary Indian and Chinese art to a Western audience. Among his Pulitzer-winning pieces were ones written as a result of a trip to China prompted by the 2008 Summer Olympics, including an examination of the Chinese museum scene and an account of art at the Mogao Caves near Dunhuang.

Holland

Holland is a region and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. The name Holland is also frequently used to informally refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. This usage is commonly accepted in other countries, but in the Netherlands and particularly in other regions of the country it could be found undesirable or even insulting.

From the 10th to the 16th century, Holland proper was a unified political region within the Holy Roman Empire as a county ruled by the Counts of Holland. By the 17th century, Holland had risen to become a maritime and economic power, dominating the other provinces of the newly independent Dutch Republic.

The area of the former County of Holland roughly coincides with the two current Dutch provinces of North Holland and South Holland, which together include the Netherlands' three largest cities: the capital city of Amsterdam; Rotterdam, home of Europe's largest port; and the seat of government of The Hague.

Etymology and terminology

Art museum

An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art. Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection. Paintings are the most commonly displayed art objects; however, sculpture, decorative arts, furniture, textiles, costume, drawings, pastels, watercolors, collages, prints, artists' books, photographs, and installation art are also regularly shown. Although primarily concerned with providing a space to show works of visual art, art galleries are sometimes used to host other artistic activities, such as performance art, music concerts, or poetry readings.

Types of galleries

The term is used for both public galleries, which are non-profit or publicly owned museums that display selected collections of art. On the other hand, private galleries refers to the commercial enterprises for the sale of art. However, both types of gallery may host traveling exhibits or temporary exhibitions including art borrowed from elsewhere.

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern United States and is the United States' 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont to the east. The state has a maritime border in the Atlantic Ocean with Rhode Island, east of Long Island, as well as an international border with the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the north and Ontario to the west and north. The state of New York, with an estimated 19.8 million residents in 2015, is often referred to as New York State to distinguish it from New York City, the state's most populous city and its economic hub.

With an estimated population of nearly 8.5 million in 2014, New York City is the most populous city in the United States and the premier gateway for legal immigration to the United States. The New York City Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City is a global city, exerting a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York City is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural and financial capital of the world, as well as the world's most economically powerful city. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State. Two-thirds of the state's population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% live on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th century Duke of York, future King James II of England. The next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester, Yonkers, and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany.

Art

Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts – artworks, expressing the author's imaginative or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power. In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

The oldest form of art are visual arts, which include creation of images or objects in fields including painting, sculpture, printmaking, photography, and other visual media. Architecture is often included as one of the visual arts; however, like the decorative arts, it involves the creation of objects where the practical considerations of use are essential—in a way that they usually are not in a painting, for example. Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of art or the arts. Until the 17th century, art referred to any skill or mastery and was not differentiated from crafts or sciences. In modern usage after the 17th century, where aesthetic considerations are paramount, the fine arts are separated and distinguished from acquired skills in general, such as the decorative or applied arts.