Umberto Allemandi Built a Global Art-News Network and a “Blue” Publishing Empire
Long before art-world news became a constant digital stream, Italian publisher Umberto Allemandi was already thinking internationally — and visually. From a base in Italy, he helped shape a model of art journalism that could travel across borders while keeping local editorial authority intact.
That “universal” ambition took a decisive step in 1990 with the launch of the London-based, English-language edition The Art Newspaper, published under the imprint Umberto Allemandi & Co. Publishing Ltd. The paper was co-founded and led until 2002 by art historian Anna Somers Cocks, formerly of the Victoria and Albert Museum and Apollo magazine. She later married Allemandi.
The London edition became the first node in a widening constellation. In 1992, a Greek edition, Ta Nea tis Technis, debuted in Athens. Two years later, Paris gained Le Journal des Arts, a title that would eventually be replaced in 2018 by The Art Newspaper France. A Spanish-language edition, El Periódico del Arte, ran from 1997 to 2002. In the 21st century, the network expanded again: The Art Newspaper Russia was founded in Moscow in 2012; The Art Newspaper China launched in Beijing in 2013; and, beginning in 2023, The Art Newspaper Turkey joined the group.
Together, these publications formed a global framework for art reporting built on a balancing act: each title and publisher maintained editorial independence, while shared principles and a steady exchange of content created a recognizable, international standard.
Allemandi’s publishing ambitions were not limited to art news. Between 2002 and 2014, he created and published Il Giornale dell’Architettura, a monthly conceived as a parallel information tool for architecture, construction, design, urban planning, and the environment. After a suspension, the publication returned online in 2014 under license from Allemandi, revived by former editors and the cultural association The Architectural Post.
Alongside periodicals, Allemandi built a substantial book-publishing operation. In 1983 — the same year he founded Il Giornale dell’Arte — he launched Umberto Allemandi & C., which became known for its aquamarine covers, a signature shade referred to internally as “Allemandi blue.” The choice was strategic: black had already been claimed as a defining look by publisher Franco Maria Ricci. Allemandi’s inspiration came from England, drawn from the tone of a particular kind of writing paper. He also carried forward a lesson learned from Armando Testa: a strong visual identity is not decoration, but recognition — something a reader can spot instantly.
Over time, the house assembled a catalog noted for scholarly rigor. It now encompasses nearly 2,800 titles spanning art history, architecture, the economics of art, and literature. Its author list reads like a map of postwar art-historical and critical thought, including Luigi Carluccio, Federico Zeri, Giuliano Briganti, Francis Haskell, John Pope-Hennessy, Jean Clair, Alvar González-Palacios, Jennifer Montagu, Clement Greenberg, Erwin Panofsky, David Sylvester, Rafael Moneo, Renzo Piano, and Antonio Paolucci.
Among the most significant projects was “Caravaggism in Europe,” a monumental study running to more than a thousand pages and two thousand illustrations. The project was completed after the death of its editor, Benedict Nicolson, by his wife, Luisa Vertova. Other landmark publications included Pope-Hennessy’s studies of Raphael and Renaissance sculpture; Zeri’s “Giorno per giorno dell’arte”; the Italian translation of Greenberg’s “Art and Culture”; Clair’s “Critique de la modernité”; and Haskell’s “Patrons and Painters,” a foundational account of how art and society intertwined in the Baroque period.
The company also ventured into multimedia with series such as “I Video del Louvre,” and it managed museum bookshops across Italy, including at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome, the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the Egyptian Museum in Turin, and the Reggia di Venaria. Its exhibition-catalog publishing extended to major institutions internationally, among them The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the Vatican Museums, and the Dalí Museum in Figueres.
Taken together, Allemandi’s legacy suggests a coherent philosophy: art information should be both portable and precise — anchored by editorial standards, and made memorable through design.
