Which critic first used the term 'Minimal Art' in a 1965 essay?

The critic who first used the term “Minimal Art” in a 1965 essay was Richard Wollheim.

Wollheim was a British philosopher and art critic whose essay “Minimal Art” appeared in Arts Magazine in January 1965. He used the phrase while discussing art that minimized the artist’s visible contribution, including works that relied on manufactured objects, repetition or extremely reduced intervention. His essay helped establish vocabulary for debates about new forms of American art.

The label later became closely associated with artists such as Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin and Sol LeWitt. However, the terminology was not always settled. Artists and critics also used expressions such as “Primary Structures,” “ABC Art” and “literalist art,” while some artists resisted being grouped under a single movement name.

A common mix-up is Michael Fried, whose 1967 essay “Art and Objecthood” famously criticized Minimalist or literalist art. Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg were also influential critics, but neither is the standard answer to the question about the first use of “Minimal Art.”