This is 71: Art Critic Jerry Saltz Responds to The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire

"On the inside I feel the exact same as I did when I was like 45, so outside I act that way."

From the time I was 10, I’ve been obsessed with what it means to grow older. I’m curious about what it means to others, of all ages, and so I invite them to take “The Oldster Magazine Questionnaire.”

Here, Jerry Saltz, New York Magazine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning senior art critic, responds. - Sari Botton

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Jerry Saltz, 71.

Jerry Saltz is the senior art critic at New York magazine and its entertainment site Vulture, and the author of the New York Times bestseller How to Be an Artist. In 2018 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. A frequent guest lecturer at major universities and museums, he has lectured at Harvard University, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and many others, and has taught at Columbia University, Yale University, the Rhode Island School of Design, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and elsewhere.

How old are you?

Younger than the Sistine Chapel but older than Amy Winehouse would have been today: 71

Is there another age you associate with yourself in your mind? If so, what is it? And why, do you think? 

I didn’t start writing until I was about 40. I had never written a word in my life. I had been a failed-artist turned long distance truck driver—with no degrees. So, since I have been writing about 35 years, I always seem to see myself as about that old. A beginner, still trying to make my way, learning on the job, stunned at what I don’t know every day.

Do you feel old for your age? Young for your age? Just right? Are you in step with your peers?

When I walked into my 50-year high school reunion I saw that I was the only person who hadn’t aged at all and then began telling everyone there “We are so old!” Sort of lost high school for the second time, that night.

Saltz in 1976. Photo by Carol Dielh.

What do you like about being your age?

I just got hearing aids. I love them. But when I don’t want someone to talk to me, or feel threatened, I have found that just by pointing at my hearing aids and mouthing “I do not hear well,” that it scares people, and they step away.

What is difficult about being your age?

I have still never spent a night in a hospital. However, in the last 18 months my upper-eyelids had drooped so much that I had to scotch tape them to my forehead to be able to read—so I had to get that fixed.

Then, I had a hernia and had noticed that I had never appeared naked to a team of female doctors who all stood around eying, drawing on, and feeling my downstairs region. A nightmare come to life.  

Saltz with his wife, Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic for the New York Times.

What is surprising about being your age, or different from what you expected, based on what you were told?

On the inside I feel the exact same as I did when I was like 45, so outside I act that way. That’s the surprise: It feels the same. Of course, as I am running around in public as this imaginary 45-year old, everyone sees what probably comes across as this geezer with hair coming out of his ears.

What has aging given you? Taken away from you?

Age has given me almost continual gratefulness as I see more and more that I barely made it as a writer, at all.

The only thing it took away from me is something I never liked: Staying up late with people in noisy restaurants and afterparties, and after-after parties. Now, when I go home at 8:00PM no one cares or bats an eye. And younger people are probably secretly happy that they don’t have to pretend I am one of them anymore.

How has getting older affected your sense of yourself, or your identity?

Not really; I still have to try to curb my obnoxiousness in my work.

Order Saltz’s new book, Art is Life: Icons & Iconoclasts; Visionaries & Vigilantes; & Flashes of Hope in the Night.

What are some age-related milestones you are looking forward to? Or ones you “missed,” and might try to reach later, off-schedule, according to our culture and its expectations?

I have never thought about milestones. Or bucket lists or anything. As a 71-year old weekly art critic writing for print I am now one of the very last of my kind. So I try to be the very best I can be at whatever it is I do so that some sort of template will exist as art criticisms totally reinvents itself in other formats.  

Is there someone who is older than you, who makes growing older inspiring to you? Who is your aging idol and why?

Bob Dylan because he is writing about writing and not afraid fail flamboyantly. Dolly Parton because she’s Dolly Parton.

I didn’t start writing until I was about 40. I had never written a word in my life. I had been a failed-artist turned long distance truck driver—with no degrees. So, since I have been writing about 35 years, I always seem to see myself as about that old. A beginner, still trying to make my way, learning on the job, stunned at what I don’t know every day.

What aging-related adjustments have you recently made, style-wise, beauty-wise, health-wise?

I have never had any sense of style. I shop about once every 12 years; I buy six pair of everything and wear those things.

I seem to have granted myself permission to eat pizza every night. Sometimes twice a day.

Photo of Saltz by Celeste Sloman

What’s an aging-related adjustment you refuse to make, and why?

I know that it is no longer possible to see the 150+ galleries on my weekly list.

What’s your philosophy on celebrating birthdays as an adult? How do you celebrate yours?

Now that you mention it, I do not think that I have ever had a birthday party. It’s not anything I have ever thought about. As this late-bloomer I spend every second thrilled to be doing what I am doing and never want to do anything else, ever. I suppose that is rather childish of me.