Lawrence Alloway, an art critic and former curator of the Guggenheim Museum credited with coining the term ``pop art,'' has died at age 63. Alloway died of cardiac arrest Tuesday at his home in Manhattan. Born in Wimbledon, England, Alloway studied art history at the University of London but never earned a degree. From 1954 to 1957, he served as director of London's Institute of Contemporary Art, where he became known for his shows and critiques of avant-garde artists. In 1958, he won a grant to study art in the United States. Alloway served as curator of the Guggenheim Museum from 1962 to 1966, wrote art criticism for The Nation from 1963 to 1971 and taught art history at the State University of New York at Stony Brook from 1968 to 1981. There he cofounded ``Art Criticism'' magazine with the critic Donald Kuspit. An early champion of postwar American art, he is credited with abbreviating the term popular art into ``pop art'' to denote new work by younger artists that dealt with consumer images. Alloway wrote several books, including a study of violence in American films. He is survived by his wife, painter Sylvia Sleigh.
