After 113 years, ARTnews magazine is ceasing monthly publication. As a result of the magazine’s recent merger with Art in America, the title will be reduced to releasing quarterly issues.
The news should come as no surprise to those who read between the lines of the July announcement of the merger between the two magazines, in which newsprint magnate and art collector Peter Brant sold Art in America (founded in 1913), the Magazine Antiques and Modern Magazine to ARTnews SA. (Full disclosure: I worked at Art in America from 2010 to 2014.)
“ARTNEWS SA will maintain Art in America on its current publication schedule of 11 issues a year and will launch a new bundled print subscription offer under the Art in America brand with ARTnews focusing on special themed editions that have proven successful with the readers, such as the best-selling ARTnews issue ‘The World’s Top 200 Collectors,'” read the official statement.
ARTnews editor Sarah Douglas’s announcement also skirted the issue, claiming that she looked “forward to continuing to provide our readers with top-notch journalism, online and in print, presented in a lively and vivid fashion.” (Modern will stay quarterly, and Antiques will maintain its bi-monthly schedule.)
The current covers of ARTnews and Art in America magazines.
As part of the terms of the merger, Brant’s BMP Media Holdings, the parent company for his three art publications, is now the majority shareholder in ARTnews SA. (Brant will retain sole ownership of Interview magazine—which is not included in the deal—through Brant Publications, Inc.)
Announcements in the New York Times and Business Wire focused on the consolidation of the online presence of the four art magazines, as well as ARTnews SA’s Polish Art & Business magazine and Skate’s Art Market Research, which belongs to Skate’s founder Sergey Skaterschikov, who bought ARTnews in 2014. All of the properties will be online at ARTnews.com by the end of the year.
Peter Brant in 2014.
Photo: J Grassi/Patrick McMullan.
“This made us a more complete company, a more international company,” Brant told the Times.
Although he insisted that the editorial teams for the magazines would remain separate, Brant added that “we’re going to try to join forces as a group.”