Art and Antiques Magazine
Encyclopedia
Art & Antiques is an American arts magazine
.
The new Art & Antiques was founded and published by Wick Allison
, who had previously founded D Magazine
, a city magazine devoted to Dallas. A major investor in Allison's magazine was an insurance company, the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company
, which viewed the magazine as a prestigious publication and an asset to the firm's reputation.
Isolde Motley (who had formerly edited Art+Auction
, went on to be the force behind the Martha Stewart publishing empire and was later Corporate Editor at Time Inc.) was the founding editor, followed, in 1986, by Jeff Schaire.
For the first several years after 1984, Art & Antiques was an oversize publication. This stopped when it became apparent that the publishing costs were just too high.
. One of these was a story dealing with whether or not the Mona Lisa
was actually a depiction of its artist Leonardo da Vinci
and purported to produce scientific evidence that it in fact was.
But the story that produced a firestorm of publicity and was immediately picked up by Time
and Newsweek
dealt with the Helga paintings by Andrew Wyeth
, which became a huge news story both because of the scandalous implication that the subject might be the artist's mistress and also because of the general belief that Wyeth had been producing over the course of many years a large body of as-yet-unknown masterpieces.
Under Allison, the magazine was based at the Simon Dezer Building, 87-89 Fifth Avenue. The historic structure, on lower Fifth Avenue
, was built in the early 1900s.
Under the owner who bought it from Allison, Art & Antiques moved for a period to an Art Deco
skyscraper
on Third Avenue.
The character of the magazine was largely shaped by founding editor Isolde Motley and later Jeffrey Schaire, who attempted to bring to the magazine a mixture of high art and popular culture, with articles not just on major artists, but also on pinball machines and inexpensive collectibles, items more accessible for a wider audience.
The magazine's prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s was reflected in a 1991 case of theft at the Macklowe Gallery, a dealer in Tiffany lamp
s, jewelry, and antiques, especially items in the art nouveau
style. At the close of the business day, a robber was able to gain access to the gallery on upper Madison Avenue simply by claiming to be a bike messenger with a parcel from Art & Antiques and was able to abscond with about $80,000.00 worth of jewelry. In fact, the magazine did not have any relationship with the gallery at that time.
In his contemporary commentary on the period, the writer Tom Wolfe
saw Art & Antiques and other publications as part of what he called a "plutographic" movement. The Spring, 1989, issue of the Grinnell Magazine, a publication of Grinnell College
, transcribed a speech Wolfe had given at the school in which he said the following:
In the 1990 book Conversations With Tom Wolfe, the writer elaborated:
From the late 1990s, the magazine was based in Atlanta, Georgia
, the headquarters of parent company Trans World Publishing, Inc., until the publication was sold in 2006 to CurtCo Media. Other magazines owned by CurtCo Media include San Diego Magazine
, Robb Report, Sarasota, and Gulfshore Life. CurtCo sold off most of its magazines, including Art & Antiques, in 2010.
, and would later appear in Art+Auction
and other art-world publications.
The annual issue was both famous and infamous in the art world. Schaire did not simply choose major collectors, but tried to focus on both those rich people who had done a lot in the last year, as well as smaller collectors who, although not of immense wealth, brought an interesting focus to their collecting, specializing in off-beat art, antiques, and collectibles.
, former art critic for the New York Times, and authors such as John Updike
, Françoise Gilot, and Hugh Kenner
. In the 1980s and early 1990s, editor Jeffrey Schaire strived to bring in notable authors, in the hope that the magazine would be unpretentious and interesting for a general audience.
In the same spirit, Schaire tried to bring in celebrity authors to bring in their own thoughts and remembrances of art-related subjects. These authors included notables such as the actress Helen Hayes
.
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
.
1984 launch
Art & Antiques began with the March, 1984, issue, also called the "Premier Issue." While the magazine disclaimed any connection to a previous publication of the same name, the company had in fact bought the rights from a previous magazine produced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. That magazine began as American Art & Antiques, later shortening its name to simply Art & Antiques.The new Art & Antiques was founded and published by Wick Allison
Wick Allison
Wick Allison, birth name Lodowick Brodie Cobb Allison , is an American magazine publisher and author. He currently is the owner of D Magazine, a monthly magazine covering Dallas-Fort Worth, which he co-founded in 1974, and the principal owner of People Newspapers, which he purchased in...
, who had previously founded D Magazine
D Magazine
This article is about the magazine about Dallas. For the Italian magazine, see La Repubblica.D Magazine is a monthly magazine covering Dallas-Fort Worth. It covers a range of topics including politics, business, food, fashion and lifestyle in the city of Dallas. The first issue was published in...
, a city magazine devoted to Dallas. A major investor in Allison's magazine was an insurance company, the Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company
Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company
The Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company was a life insurance company based in Newark, New Jersey that was chartered in 1845. The company was headed by Frederick Frelinghuysen...
, which viewed the magazine as a prestigious publication and an asset to the firm's reputation.
Isolde Motley (who had formerly edited Art+Auction
Art & Auction
Art+Auction is a monthly art magazine published in New York City by Louise Blouin Media. The magazine is published 12 times per year; it includes special features & art news stories, art & collector profiles, reviews & auction reports, calendar of art events, art market trends & insider market...
, went on to be the force behind the Martha Stewart publishing empire and was later Corporate Editor at Time Inc.) was the founding editor, followed, in 1986, by Jeff Schaire.
For the first several years after 1984, Art & Antiques was an oversize publication. This stopped when it became apparent that the publishing costs were just too high.
Early publicity
Under editor Jeff Schaire, Art & Antiques published two stories that earned a great deal of publicity in the mainstream mediaMainstream media
Mainstream media are those media disseminated via the largest distribution channels, which therefore represent what the majority of media consumers are likely to encounter...
. One of these was a story dealing with whether or not the Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa
Mona Lisa is a portrait by the Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is a painting in oil on a poplar panel, completed circa 1503–1519...
was actually a depiction of its artist Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...
and purported to produce scientific evidence that it in fact was.
But the story that produced a firestorm of publicity and was immediately picked up by Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
and Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
dealt with the Helga paintings by Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Wyeth
Andrew Newell Wyeth was a visual artist, primarily a realist painter, working predominantly in a regionalist style. He was one of the best-known U.S. artists of the middle 20th century....
, which became a huge news story both because of the scandalous implication that the subject might be the artist's mistress and also because of the general belief that Wyeth had been producing over the course of many years a large body of as-yet-unknown masterpieces.
1980s-1990s
In the early 1990s, Allison brought in Michael Pashby to take over duties as publisher. Pashby had previous done extensive work with Meredith Publications. Today he is the Executive Vice President/General Manager of Magazine Publishers of America, a trade organization.Under Allison, the magazine was based at the Simon Dezer Building, 87-89 Fifth Avenue. The historic structure, on lower Fifth Avenue
Fifth Avenue (Manhattan)
Fifth Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the center of the borough of Manhattan in New York City, New York, United States. The section of Fifth Avenue that crosses Midtown Manhattan, especially that between 49th Street and 60th Street, is lined with prestigious shops and is consistently ranked among...
, was built in the early 1900s.
Under the owner who bought it from Allison, Art & Antiques moved for a period to an Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
on Third Avenue.
The character of the magazine was largely shaped by founding editor Isolde Motley and later Jeffrey Schaire, who attempted to bring to the magazine a mixture of high art and popular culture, with articles not just on major artists, but also on pinball machines and inexpensive collectibles, items more accessible for a wider audience.
The magazine's prominence in the late 1980s and early 1990s was reflected in a 1991 case of theft at the Macklowe Gallery, a dealer in Tiffany lamp
Tiffany lamp
A Tiffany lamp is a type of lamp with many different types of glass shade. The most famous was the stained leaded glass lamp. Tiffany lamps are considered part of the Art Nouveau movement.- History :...
s, jewelry, and antiques, especially items in the art nouveau
Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau is an international philosophy and style of art, architecture and applied art—especially the decorative arts—that were most popular during 1890–1910. The name "Art Nouveau" is French for "new art"...
style. At the close of the business day, a robber was able to gain access to the gallery on upper Madison Avenue simply by claiming to be a bike messenger with a parcel from Art & Antiques and was able to abscond with about $80,000.00 worth of jewelry. In fact, the magazine did not have any relationship with the gallery at that time.
In his contemporary commentary on the period, the writer Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe
Thomas Kennerly "Tom" Wolfe, Jr. is a best-selling American author and journalist. He is one of the founders of the New Journalism movement of the 1960s and 1970s.-Early life and education:...
saw Art & Antiques and other publications as part of what he called a "plutographic" movement. The Spring, 1989, issue of the Grinnell Magazine, a publication of Grinnell College
Grinnell College
Grinnell College is a private liberal arts college in Grinnell, Iowa, U.S. known for its strong tradition of social activism. It was founded in 1846, when a group of pioneer New England Congregationalists established the Trustees of Iowa College....
, transcribed a speech Wolfe had given at the school in which he said the following:
- Pornography is the graphic depiction of the acts of prostitutes. Plutography is the graphic depiction of the acts of the rich. Why else do you think people subscribe to magazines like House and GardenHouse & Garden (magazine)House & Garden was an American shelter magazine published by Condé Nast Publications that focused on interior design, entertaining, and gardening....
, Architectural DigestArchitectural DigestArchitectural Digest is an American monthly magazine. Its principal subject is interior design, not — as the name of the magazine might suggest — architecture more generally. The magazine is published by Condé Nast Publications and was founded in 1920, by the Knapp family, who sold it in 1993...
, Town and CountryTown & Country (magazine)Town & Country, formerly the Home Journal and The National Press, is a monthly American lifestyle magazine. It is the oldest continually published general interest magazine in the United States.-Early history:...
, Connoisseur, Art and Antiques? Suppose that you are being given tips about design, connoisseurship and all these things; obviously it's really just so that you can look plutographically at the lives of the rich. And, you notice, these magazines are becoming the wealthy magazines of today.
In the 1990 book Conversations With Tom Wolfe, the writer elaborated:
- Pornography was the great vice of the 1970s; plutography—the graphic depiction of the acts of the rich—is the great vice of the 1980s. Now that PlayboyPlayboyPlayboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
and PenthousePenthouse (magazine)Penthouse, a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione, combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictorials that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore. Penthouse is owned by FriendFinder Network. formerly known as General Media, Inc. whose parent company was Penthouse International...
are on the skids financially, what rises in their place? House & Garden, Architectural Digest, Town & Country, Art & Antiques, Connoisseur. And there's a new one called Millionaire—I love that.
Late 1990s to 2010
After Allison sold Allison Publications, the publisher of Art & Antiques, the magazine went through various ownersFrom the late 1990s, the magazine was based in Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
, the headquarters of parent company Trans World Publishing, Inc., until the publication was sold in 2006 to CurtCo Media. Other magazines owned by CurtCo Media include San Diego Magazine
San Diego Magazine
San Diego Magazine is a monthly publication concerning life in the San Diego region. This is the city’s longest running lifestyle publication and has continued to prosper and evolve throughout its 60-year history...
, Robb Report, Sarasota, and Gulfshore Life. CurtCo sold off most of its magazines, including Art & Antiques, in 2010.
2010 to Present
Phillip Troy Linger, former publisher of Los Angeles based Brentwood Magazine, purchased Art & Antiques magazine in May 2010.100 Top Collectors
Under founding editor Jeffrey Schaire, Art & Antiques began a tradition of publishing an annual issue devoted to the "100 Top Collectors." This was one of the first compendiums of its kind, although similar articles had appeared in Connoisseur under editor Thomas HovingThomas Hoving
Thomas Pearsall Field Hoving was an American museum executive and consultant and the former director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.-Biography:...
, and would later appear in Art+Auction
Art & Auction
Art+Auction is a monthly art magazine published in New York City by Louise Blouin Media. The magazine is published 12 times per year; it includes special features & art news stories, art & collector profiles, reviews & auction reports, calendar of art events, art market trends & insider market...
and other art-world publications.
The annual issue was both famous and infamous in the art world. Schaire did not simply choose major collectors, but tried to focus on both those rich people who had done a lot in the last year, as well as smaller collectors who, although not of immense wealth, brought an interesting focus to their collecting, specializing in off-beat art, antiques, and collectibles.
Writers
Notable writers have included Hilton KramerHilton Kramer
Hilton Kramer is a U.S. art critic and cultural commentator.Kramer was educated at Syracuse University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Indiana University and the New School for Social Research. He worked as the editor of Arts Magazine, art critic for The Nation, and from 1965 to 1982,...
, former art critic for the New York Times, and authors such as John Updike
John Updike
John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short story writer, art critic, and literary critic....
, Françoise Gilot, and Hugh Kenner
Hugh Kenner
William Hugh Kenner , was a Canadian literary scholar, critic and professor.Kenner was born in Peterborough, Ontario on January 7, 1923; his father taught classics...
. In the 1980s and early 1990s, editor Jeffrey Schaire strived to bring in notable authors, in the hope that the magazine would be unpretentious and interesting for a general audience.
In the same spirit, Schaire tried to bring in celebrity authors to bring in their own thoughts and remembrances of art-related subjects. These authors included notables such as the actress Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes
Helen Hayes Brown was an American actress whose career spanned almost 70 years. She eventually garnered the nickname "First Lady of the American Theatre" and was one of twelve people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award...
.