If it is possible for a critic to be a genius, then Peter was one. Just a few weeks ago, The New Yorker published one of his finest pieces ever, on Mondrian. It ends with a grandly dizzying sentence that contains the phrase “adamantine conundrum.” This, I told him, was worthy of Wallace Stevens. Peter was a raucously, symphonically vital writer right to the end, immune to cliché and addicted to surprise. In person, he was quick, funny, honest, and wise. A couple of decades ago, in some now extinct diner in the East Village, we had a long conversation that touched on heavy matters, and in the course of it he said, “Faith is not panicking.” Thank you, Peter, for everything.
Remembrances: David Remnick, The New Yorker, The New York Times