[citation needed] He and his five siblings—Berkeley psychologist Alison, writer Adam, oceanographer Morgan, archeologist Hilary, and Melissa Gopnik, who manages a nonprofit—grew up in Moshe Safdie's brutalist housing community, Habitat 67.

[citation needed] In 1994, he completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford on realism in Renaissance painting and the philosophy of representation.

[7] After receiving his doctorate, Gopnik returned to Canada, where he held minor academic jobs, before switching to journalism.

In 1995, he became the editor-in-chief of Insite, an architecture and design magazine, and was later hired as the fine arts editor at The Globe and Mail.

[citation needed] In 2011, Gopnik was hired as the art and design critic at Newsweek magazine and the Daily Beast website.