How did Peter Schjeldahl die? Art Critic cause of death Explained

Peter Schjeldahl

Peter Schjeldahl, a well-known poet and art critic, passed away on October 20, 2022, Thursday at the age of 80 in his Bovina, New York, home. Let’s see how did Peter Schjeldahl die and Peter Schjeldahl cause of death in detail.

How did Peter Schjeldahl die?

The New Yorker, where Schjeldahl had worked as a staff writer and art critic since 1998, confirmed the news of his passing on Twitter. Schjeldahl had previously served as the Village Voice’s art critic from 1990 to 1998. He has written for publications such as the New York Times, Artforum, Art in America, Vogue, and Vanity Fair.

Schjeldahl, a well-known orator and expert on art history, gained notoriety in 2019 for his heartbreaking but realistic essay titled “The Art of Dying,” in which he discussed accepting his terminal lung cancer diagnosis.

“I always said that when my time came I’d want to go fast,” he wrote. “But where’s the fun in that?”

Schjeldahl, a lifetime smoker, responded very well to immunotherapy but never fully recovered, according to his wife Brooke Alderson, who spoke to the media. Cancer was Peter Schjeldahl cause of death.

Peter Schjeldahl cause of death

Peter Schjeldahl died on Friday, October 21, 2022, in his home due to lung cancer at 80. In 2019, Schjeldahl was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer at the age of 77. Brooke Alderson, Peter Schjeldahl’s wife, confirmed his demise. She said that Mr. Schjeldahl, who was given the prognosis of terminal lung cancer in August 2019, underwent effective immunotherapy but never fully recovered.

Schjeldahl was the author of four books of collected essays and art criticism, the most recent of which being Hot, Cold, Heavy, Light: 100 Art Writings, 1988-2018. In recent weeks, he wrote pieces for the New Yorker on Wolfgang Tillman’s show at the Museum of Modern Art, and Piet Mondrian biography. Peter Schjeldahl cause of death was lung cancer.

Peter Schjeldahl career:

Schjeldahl, who was born in Fargo, North Dakota, in 1942, was a college dropout who found a career at the Jersey Journal in Jersey City at the age of 20. He lived in New York for a year, making friends with poet Frank O’Hara, a member of the New York School of avant-garde authors and painters.

O’Hara was young when she perished in a dune buggy accident in 1966, and Schjeldahl originally intended to write a biography of her but never did. The surviving interview tapes were used to write Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me, a 2022 memoir by Schjeldahl and Alderson’s daughter, Ada Calhoun, on her father’s complicated relationship with her. In 1965, Schjeldahl returned to New York after spending a year in Paris.

Schjeldahl returned to New York in 1965, “an eager poet, a jobber in journalism, and a tyro art fanatic,” as he described it earlier this year. Schjeldahl began one of the most illustrious careers in the business when Thomas B. Hess hired him to write a review for ARTnews even though he had no prior experience in criticism.
“I assumed that writing art critique by poets was common.

People appreciated what I did, so I started doing it,” he said in Interview magazine in 2014. Schjeldahl received multiple honors for his work throughout his nearly 60-year career, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Clark Prize for Excellence in Arts Writing, and the Howard Vursell Memorial Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

The New York Review of Books referred to him as “our best—our most astute and witty—art critic” in 2009.
Schjeldahl is survived by his wife, daughter, and grandchild, as well as four siblings.

Tributes to Peter Schjeldahl 

Sally Davies posted,

Some sad news today. Peter Schjeldahl died.

“I have no patience for the bitterness of any kind,” he told Interview magazine in 2014. “Even to be involved with art is to inhabit such a level of privilege in life.”

Michael Luo tweeted,

Sad news @newyorker. Its longtime art critic, Peter Schjeldahl, has died. Here’s his 2019 essay on dying.

Andrei Zagdansky posted,

Peter Schjeldahl. A long time ago I stumbled on his name in the New Yorker – didn’t know how to pronounce it ( in fact still not sure) and then his elegantly written and profound essays on art.

His knowledge of the subject was intimidating yet his precision was inviting. R.I. P. and thank you.

Sharmistha Ray posted,

Adieu, Peter Schjeldahl. I devoured everything you wrote when I was a graduate student and you’re the only reason I ever subscribed to The New Yorker. Your words and insights about art will be sorely missed  #RIP

Dustin Illingworth tweeted,

RIP Peter Schjeldahl, a great art critic. Worth reading this piece from a couple of years back.

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