''Portfolio Magazine'', also known as ''Portfolio, The Magazine of the Fine Arts'', was published bimonthly from 1979 to 1983 by Portfolio Associates of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. The editor and publisher was

Edwin S. Grosvenor Edwin S. Grosvenor is a writer, photographer, and President and Editor-in-Chief of ''American Heritage''. He has published nine books and is best known for writing on his great-grandfather, Alexander Graham Bell, including two books and several ma ...

, who went on to edit ''

American Heritage American Heritage may refer to: * ''American Heritage'' (magazine) * ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'' * American Heritage Rivers * American Heritage School (disambiguation) See also *National Register of Historic Place ...

'' magazine. Other staff editors included Alexandra Anderson,

Manuela Hoelterhoff Manuela Vali Hoelterhoff is a German-born American cultural journalist, who was the executive editor of ''Muse'', the arts and culture section of Bloomberg News until 2015. She is a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism laureate. Personal life and educati ...

, Denise Martin, Isolde McNichol, and Carter Wiseman. The first issue was published in April, 1979, with articles by

Hilton Kramer Hilton Kramer (March 25, 1928 – March 27, 2012) was an American art critic and essayist. Biography Early life Kramer was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and was educated at Syracuse University, receiving a bachelor's degree in English; Col ...

Charles Moffett Charles Moffett (September 6, 1929 – February 14, 1997) was an American free jazz drummer. Biography Moffett was born in Fort Worth, Texas, where he attended I.M. Terrell High School with Ornette Coleman. Before switching to drums, Moffett ...

, and Colin Eisler. ''Portfolio'' covered European and American painting, photography, architecture, and non-Western art. It aimed at a general audience, rather academics or art insiders. "''Portfolio'' addresses people like me who are collectors, not scholars," a subscriber,

Malcolm Forbes Malcolm Stevenson Forbes (August 19, 1919 – February 24, 1990) was an American entrepreneur most prominently known as the publisher of ''Forbes'' magazine, founded by his father B. C. Forbes. He was known as an avid promoter of capitalism ...

, told ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. "It's comprehensive, superbly done, helps widen my horizons." Contributing editors included

Paul Goldberger Paul Goldberger (born in 1950) is an American author, architecture critic and lecturer. He is known for his "Sky Line" column in ''The New Yorker''. Biography Shortly after starting as a reporter at ''The New York Times'' in 1972, he was assign ...

Linda Nochlin Linda Nochlin (''née'' Weinberg; January 30, 1931 – October 29, 2017) was an American art historian, Lila Acheson Wallace Professor Emerita of Modern Art at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, and writer. As a prominent feminist art h ...

Robert Rosenblum Robert Rosenblum (July 24, 1927 – December 6, 2006) was an American art historian and curator known for his influential and often irreverent scholarship on European and American art of the mid-eighteenth to 20th centuries. Biography Rosenblum wa ...

, and

Vincent Scully Vincent Joseph Scully Jr. (August 21, 1920 – November 30, 2017) was an American art historian who was a Sterling Professor of the History of Art in Architecture at Yale University, and the author of several books on the subject. Architect Phil ...

. Other contributors included

Kenneth Clark Kenneth Mackenzie Clark, Baron Clark (13 July 1903 – 21 May 1983) was a British art historian, museum director, and broadcaster. After running two important art galleries in the 1930s and 1940s, he came to wider public notice on television ...

Michael Coe Michael Douglas Coe (May 14, 1929 – September 25, 2019) was an American archaeologist, anthropologist, epigrapher, and author. He is known for his research on pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, particularly the Maya, and was among the foremost Mayan ...

, Owen Edwards,

H. W. Janson Horst Woldemar Janson (October 4, 1913 – September 30, 1982), was a Russian Empire-born German-American professor of art history best known for his ''History of Art'', which was first published in 1962 and has since sold more than four million c ...

, Ben Lifson,

Barbara Novak Barbara J. Novak (born 1929) is an American art historian. She was the Helen Goodhart Altschul Professor of Art History at Barnard College from 1958 to 1998. Biography Novak was born in New York City in 1929. She grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens ...

Carter Ratcliff Carter Ratcliff (born 1941 in Seattle, Washington) is an American art critic, writer and poet. His books on art include "John Singer Sargent" (Abbeville Press, 1982); "Robert Longo" ( Rizzoli, 1985); "The Fate of a Gesture: Jackson Pollock and Post ...

, John Russell,

Kirk Varnedoe John Kirk Train Varnedoe (January 18, 1946 – August 14, 2003) was an American art historian, the Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art from 1988 to 2001, Professor of the History of Art at the Institute for Advance ...

, and

John Wilmerding John Currie Wilmerding Jr. (born April 28, 1938), is an American professor of art, collector, and curator, and is best known as a prolific author of books on American art. Early life Wilmerding was born in Boston, Massachusetts on April 28, 19 ...

. In 1983, ''Portfolio'' was a finalist for a

National Magazine Award The National Magazine Awards, also known as the Ellie Awards, honor print and digital publications that consistently demonstrate superior execution of editorial objectives, innovative techniques, noteworthy enterprise and imaginative design. Or ...

in the General Excellence category. It was forced to suspend publication that year when a recession caused a drop in advertising pages.

References

Further reading