Allan Douglass Coleman (born 1943)[1] is an independent American critic, historian, educator, and curator of photography and photo-based art, and a widely published commentator on new digital technologies.
During the McCarthy era (1951–3) his family moved to France, during which time he became bilingual francophone, and then briefly to England, before returning to the U.S. Aside from that interruption he was raised in Manhattan, where he went to school at, successively, P.S.
In 1963 he published a one-act-play in Echo, titled "Midnight Mass", that evoked the wrath of the conservative Catholic newspaper The Tablet (Diocese of Brooklyn), resulting in a public uproar that nearly ended up with the imposition of censorship on all CUNY publications.
Coleman was the first photo critic for The New York Times, authoring 120 articles during his tenure.
[3] He started writing in 1967 and has contributed to The Village Voice, The New York Observer and numerous magazines, artist monographs and other publications worldwide.