The Russian mathematician, engineer, and collector Inna Bazhenova has acquired The Art Newspaper from longtime owner Umberto Allemandi for an undisclosed sum, it was announced this morning.
Since 2010, Bazhenova has held a license to publish TAN, in Russian, having approached the owners. In 2012, according to a release, she and her husband Dmitry Samorukov, made an offer to Allemandi and founder, editor and, current CEO Anna Somers Cocks, which they accepted. The sale agreement reportedly bolsters the shaky financial position of the publication which has been foundering with steadily falling print circulation (now 23,000 worldwide) and little development or expansion on the internet.
The release included a statement from Allemandi, who said that after 50 years in the business, he needed to think about the future. He then added this hilarious description of the new owners: “I have chosen Inna. I pass the baton to her because she and her husband Dmitry are young, they are rich, they are honest and have convinced me that they share my ideals.”
Bazhenova, who was born in 1968, grew up in Nizhny Nogorod in the Volta region, and began her career as an engineer in the state aeronautics industry. She began setting up companies employing aeronautics technologies to manufacture pumping equipment for oil and gas in 1994. She began collecting art a decade ago, according to the release.