History

For nearly a century, and in its various incarnations, Art + Australia has enjoyed a rich history as Australia’s premier art magazine. First published by Sam Ure-Smith in May 1963, it has a predecessor in Sam’s father Sydney Ure Smith’s Art in Australia, which was in print from 1916 to 1942.

From 1963 to 1983, Mervyn Horton was the magazine's founding editor. He was followed by Elwyn Lynn, Jennifer Phipps and Leon Paroissien, Dinah Dysart, Hannah Fink and Laura Murray Cree. From 2003 to 2015, Eleonora Triguboff was editor and publisher of Art + Australia (under the masthead ARTAND since 2013), working with editors Claire Armstrong, Katrina Schwarz and Michael Fitzgerald, and Genevieve O'Callaghan. The magazine has also involved many distinguished editorial advisers, including James Gleeson, John Olsen, John Brack, Ursula Hoff, Daniel Thomas, Sasha Grishin and Deborah Hart.

Over the past five decades Art + Australia has witnessed landmark Australian and international events, representing both the historic and the contemporary. While under the stewardship of Eleonora Triguboff, its scope broadened through many associated projects and collaborations. Between 2004 and 2015 the ARTAND Australia/Credit Suisse Private Banking Contemporary Art Award was awarded to over thirty-five emerging artists and, since 2008, the magazine has partnered to host the Gertrude Contemporary and ARTAND Australia Emerging Writers Program. As ARTAND and Dott Publishing, the journal has regularly collaborated with artists and designers to produce Artist Editions, Artist Projects and art books, such as Current: Contemporary Art from Australia and New Zealand (2008) and Del Kathryn Barton and Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose (2012).

In December 2015, through an extraordinary gift, Eleonora Triguboff presented Art + Australia to the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) at the University of Melbourne, where it is now based under the stewardship of editor-in-chief Professor Su Baker.