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The critical voice in Roberta Smiths head is mercifully, blessedly silent.

I can walk into a show now and not have the first line of the review pop into my head, said Ms. Smith, 76, who retired last month as the co-chief art critic of The New York Times.

The announcement prompted tributes on social media from fellow critics, artists, gallery owners, curators and readers, who called her legendary, peerless and a critical model for a lifetime. Over her 38-year career at The Times, Ms. Smith cultivated a reputation for intimate observations conveyed in accessible prose. She began her career as a freelance critic for The Times in 1986 before being hired in 1991. In 2011, she was promoted to co-chief art critic the first woman to hold the title, which she shared with Holland Cotter.

But now, without the pressure of having to present a point of view in The Times, shes free to do what she loves most visit shows and galleries just to look.

I look at shows less intently when Im not writing about them, she said. That means sometimes I may not come out with a really formed opinion, because there isnt that pressure.

In a recent phone conversation from her Greenwich Village apartment, where she lives with her husband of 32 years, the New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz, Ms. Smith discussed her journey to becoming a professional critic, how her taste in art has changed over the years and what its like being married to a fellow critic. These are edited excerpts.

How did you get started as a critic?

I began writing when I was 25 as a freelancer at Arts Magazine which is now defunct with an article on the painter Brice Marden. I became a critic in the same way a lot of people become critics: by immersing themselves in a subject and having enough confidence to listen to their opinions. Criticism isnt really an academic subject. I dont think it can be taught at school; its much more visceral. It happens when youre in front of art, examining it, articulating opinions and trying to convert those opinions into clear prose.

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Roberta Smith on Life as an Art Critic and Retirement - The New York Times