The Magazine Antiques – March/April 2011

Antiques Magazine was started in 1922. The magazine was completely redesigned in 2009. The head-of-title note "The Magazine" first appeared in January 1928, but from August 1952 to February 1971, it was not used. The magazine has a readership of 150,000 and is published by Brant Publications, a firm founded in 1984 by Peter M. Brant, a newsprint tycoon and art collector. Influential as it is, it’s entirely clear how this journal has stayed one of the most successful antiques-specialist titles in the world. With a remarkable circulation in its home territory of the USA, although the content remains mainly focused on the American antiques scene - the original reason for its presence all those decades ago- its outlook is international, as suits any title dedicated to the field. American antique collectors, so the media clichés tell us, are very affectionate of the cultural output of much older art and design cultures in addition to domestic traditions. Furthermore, as a forward-looking title that understands the shifts in trends and collection markets, Antiques is one of the few titles that has devoted editorial to new emerging markets and trends in addition to the more traditional Eurocentric circuits and their established tendencies towards Orientalism. Picking up on trends –such as a fresh appetite for African antiques in a new multicultural generation or emerging East-to-East markets- Antiques remains an informative and accessible resource for a diverse readership; for love or money.

James Gardner’s article, “The Anxiety of Modernism” is a strong reason to buy the spring issue of Antiques. Spring issue is available Other Edition as a digital magazine. The magazine, Taking its cue from the major new exhibition ‘Vienna 1900: Style and Identity’ that recently opened at the Neue Galerie in New York, it firstly traces the difference between the Viennese movement and the contemporary developments in Paris. If the stylistic differences are more familiar territory, then what makes Gardner’s piece so inspirational is that, rather than explain Klimt and his contemporaries in purely appealing terms, his is a discussion that locates the Viennese movement within the context of Europe’s oldest, most ossified and most controlling imperial culture. James Gardner’s article is hardly the sole reason to buy this issue. Amongst all the usual learned and informative regular features on the best of the international antique scene, there are numerous other fascinating feature articles. A good example is John Stuart Gordon’s article on Lurelle Guild, the great American product designer whose highly desirable modern designs of the 1930’s frequently pay homage to much older design movements. And, for those who believe that dynamite comes in small packages, Danielle O. Kisluk-Grosheide’s article lifts the cover on the secret lives of cabinets, cases and boxes that were an essential of the European well-appointed household from the Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. Her article contains as many concealed gems as its subject.