Art: He Says It's Spinach

John Canaday deplores most abstract expressionist art—and that opinion fuels a bitter feud. For Canaday is art news editor of the U.S.'s leading newspaper, the New York Times, and abstract expressionism is the U.S.'s most important school of art. Last week the feud, smoldering for months, broke into flame.

Canaday, 54, came to the Times in 1959 after a career of teaching (University of Virginia, Tulane) and heading up the educational activities of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Almost from his first column, he infuriated the abstract expressionists, chiefly by the wicked suggestion...