SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.- Dore Ashton, one of the world's most authoritative critics of modern and contemporary art is visiting Australia for the first time for a special lecture in Sydney to discuss her own experiences with artists such as Mark Rothko, Philip Guston and Jackson Pollock.

The author of over thirty books on art and culture and a teacher, Dore Ashton is Professor of Art History at The Cooper Union in New York and has served as the curator of art exhibitions both in the United States and abroad and as an art critic for The New York Times. She was awarded an M.A. from Harvard University.

With the emergence of Abstract Expressionism after World War II, the attention of the international art world turned from Paris to New York. Dore Ashton will discuss the vitality of the cultural milieu in which the New York School of artists, including Pollock, Rothko and de Krooning worked and argued and critiqued each other’s work from the 1930s - 1950s.

Ashton has had first-hand experience with the New York School of artists including extensive conversations with the men and women who participated in the rise of the New York School. Dore Ashton will provide a rich cultural history of this period.