Randy Kennedy was born in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in the Texas Panhandle. He was educated at the University of Texas at Austin. He moved to New York City in 1991 and worked on the staff of The New York Times for twenty-five years, much of that time writing about the art world. Presidio, his first novel, set in 1970s West Texas, was published in 2018 by Touchstone/Simon & Schuster. In 2025, Red Gap, a play written with the artist Will Boone, was published by Karma Books. For The New York Times and The New York Times Magazine Kennedy has written about many of the most prominent artists of the last 50 years, including Claes Oldenburg, Bruce Nauman, Vito Acconci, Vija Celmins, Paul McCarthy, Kerry James Marshall and Isa Genzken. He is currently director of special projects for the international art gallery Hauser & Wirth and editor in chief of the gallery’s quarterly culture magazine, Ursula. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Janet Krone Kennedy, a clinical psychologist, and their two children.

Portrait by Jessica Lutz