Harold Rosenberg (1906–1978)

American art critic, theorist of action painting (the term he coined in 1952 for Pollock's gestural abstraction). Long-term contributor to The New Yorker (art critic from 1967), Partisan Review, Commentary. MP's American intellectual interlocutor — the principal correspondent through whom MP's late-1940s engagement with American culture is documented (correspondence in editorial introduction to NY conferences). Met MP through Meyer Schapiro in March 1949 New York visit.

Key Points

  • Born 1906 NYC; self-trained intellectual; politically: ex-Trotskyist, then anti-stalinist independent left.
  • "The American Action Painters" (ARTnews, December 1952) — the foundational essay coining "action painting"; reads Pollock and Kline as gestural rather than representational.
  • The Tradition of the New (1959), The Anxious Object (1964), Discovering the Present (1973) — collected essays.
  • Editor of Possibilities (1947–48, single issue) — the journal that published Pollock, de Kooning, Motherwell.
  • Long-term Partisan Review contributor; Commentary contributor; eventually The New Yorker art critic 1967–78.
  • 1949 article in Les Temps Modernes (commissioned via MP); 1950 second TM article (the "second article" MP discusses in the 30 April 1950 letter on American consciousness).

Role in This Wiki

The 1949 NY meeting via Schapiro

Through Meyer Schapiro's arrangement, MP meets Rosenberg at "the alcoholic evening at Mary McCarthy's" (Rosenberg's recollection, cited Dalissier editorial introduction). The meeting is the start of a substantial correspondence that runs through 1950.

The American consciousness debate

Rosenberg's Temps Modernes article on American consciousness argues that the American "destruction des rapports avec le passé... les prépare à s'orienter vers l'avenir et à devenir révolutionnaires." MP responds (30 April 1950 letter):

"Sur un détail, je me sentais porté à vous faire une objection: est-il vrai que la manière d'être 'moderne' chez les Américains, la destruction des rapports avec le passé, — les prépare à s'orienter vers l'avenir et à devenir révolutionnaires? Ne provoque-t-elle pas plutôt chez beaucoup d'entre eux un vertige et une nostalgie?"

The exchange reveals MP's reading of America as "manque de tradition" → vertige + nostalgia rather than → revolutionary potential. Rosenberg's reply distinguishes "action" from "consciousness" and argues that American action is intuitively-revolutionary but consciousness lags behind. The correspondence becomes a substantial transatlantic dialogue on what is the American moment in 1949.

The Hook / Waldorf-Astoria controversy

Rosenberg recalls (post-1949 correspondence): "Hook's report in Partisan Review on your and Sartre's position and the meeting in opposition to the Stalinist 'cultural conference' was a triumph of Philistinism. You may be pleased to learn that I am not alone in regarding Hook as a scandal of incomprehension." The reference is to Sidney Hook's report (in PR) on the Sartre-MP statement read at the 30 April 1949 Journée internationale de résistance à la dictature et à la guerre (Sorbonne) — a statement that MP and Sartre did not personally attend but that Hook reported as their position.

The Waldorf-Astoria conferences (25–27 March 1949) — MP was in New York at this exact moment, but the available evidence does not confirm his presence at the events themselves.

The American friend network

Through Schapiro and Rosenberg, MP enters a circle that includes Bernard Wolfe (Trotsky's secretary in 1937; Trotskyist; on whom MP cites the "manque de tradition" testimony), Mary McCarthy, Robert Warshow, Sidney Hook (later antagonist), and others. The circle is the post-Trotskyist anti-stalinist American left that becomes the original constituency of the New York Intellectuals.

Connections

  • American friend of MP from 1949 onward; long-term correspondence.
  • introduced to MP via Meyer Schapiro (March 1949 NY visit).
  • parallel art-critical voice to Schapiro (Rosenberg = action painting; Schapiro = social-historical).
  • Trotskyist circle counterpart of MP's Parisian Temps Modernes circle.

Sources

  • merleau-ponty-2022-inedits-ii-1947-1949 — Dalissier editorial introduction (pp. 346–347, 365–367) reproduces extensive MP-Rosenberg correspondence and the post-NY-trip controversies.
  • H. Rosenberg, The Tradition of the New (Horizon Press, 1959); The Anxious Object (Horizon Press, 1964) — collected essays.