What is The Burlington Magazine?

The Burlington Magazine is the world’s leading monthly publication devoted to the fine and decorative arts. It publishes concise, well-written articles based on original research, presenting new works, art-historical discoveries and fresh interpretations.

The Magazine is both an enduring work of reference and a running commentary on the art world of today – as well as editorials on topical issues, it features authoritative reviews of all important books and major exhibitions, and our online Calendar is the best available guide to art events throughout the world.

The Magazine’s advertising pages present a view of some of the finest works of art on the international market from both galleries and auction houses, together with announcements of museum and dealer exhibitions, art fairs and the latest art books; here too can be found notices of curatorial vacancies, services provided by insurers, conservators, restorers, shippers, financial institutions and luxury goods on offer.

‘The Burlington Magazine is required reading for everyone in the world of art. It is distinctive in tone, clear of voice, and commands the highest respect and affection from contributors and readers alike.’

- Stephen Deuchar CBE - Director of The Art Fund, UK

‘Whether it’s the discovery of works of art, new archival information, informed reviews or sharp editorials, every issue of The Burlington Magazine constitutes essential reading. The Burlington Magazine is simply the finest art history periodical there is.’

- Gabriele Finaldi, Director at the National Gallery, London

‘Art historians will still be reading and consulting this month’s Burlington Magazine fifty and even a hundred years from now’

– Sir Nicholas Penny, former Director at the National Gallery, London

‘Essential reading for anyone seriously interested in new thinking in art history by both emerging and mature scholars’

– Sir Nicholas Serota, Chair of Arts Council England

The Magazine’s history

Founded in 1903 by a group of art historians and connoisseurs that included Roger Fry, Bernard Berenson and Herbert Horne, The Burlington Magazine has appeared monthly without interruption ever since. Their aim was to cover all aspects of the fine and decorative arts, to combine rigorous scholarship with critical insight, and to treat the art of the present with the same seriousness as the art of the past.

The Magazine’s editors have included two of the twentieth century's most important art critics – Roger Fry and Herbert Read – two directors of the National Gallery – Charles Holmes and Neil MacGregor – and the pioneer scholar of the Caravaggesque movement – Benedict Nicolson. Its contributors form a roll-call of twentieth-century art historians and critics from Kenneth Clark, John Pope-Hennessy and E.H. Gombrich to Denis Mahon, Francis Haskell, Theodore Reff, John Rewald, Pierre Rosenberg, Douglas Cooper and David Sylvester. Notable figures from the world of the arts and literature have also made contributions over the years – from Henry James, Osbert Sitwell and Walter Sickert to Georg Baselitz, Howard Hodgkin and Bridget Riley.

For twenty years, until July 1986, the Magazine was published by International Thomson, a multinational publishing company. When that arrangement ceased, The Burlington Magazine was established as a non-profit-making company with independent charitable status (Reg. Charity No. 295020) but owned jointly by The Burlington Magazine Foundation, a UK charity (Reg. Charity No. 295019), and The Burlington Magazine Foundation Inc., a not-for-profit corporation incorporated in the State of New York (Employer ID No. 13–3347776).