Gregory Cerio and Don Sparacin, editor and publisher respectively of The Magazine Antiques, acquired the title from ArtNews Media, LLC, in a deal made public on May 1.

NEW YORK CITY ­– Gregory Cerio and Don Sparacin, editor and publisher, respectively, of The Magazine Antiques, have acquired the nearly century old title from ArtNews Media, LLC, it was announced May 1.  Cerio and Sparacin will serve as the company’s principals. The company’s full corporate structure is yet to be delineated. The transaction follows Penske Media Corporation (PMC)’s fall 2018 purchase of Peter Brant’s Art Media Holdings LLC, parent company of ARTnews, Art in America, The Magazine Antiques and Modern. The other three publications will stay under the PMC umbrella.

Sparacin said he was grateful to the ArtNews Media team, particularly Mike Ye and Abigail Kagle, for “recognizing our passionate commitment to Antiques, and for working with us to put the title in our hands.”

Only the sixth editor of the magazine, Cerio began his career in journalism at Newsweek. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, GQ and The New Yorker, among other publications. He was founding editor of Modern in 2009 and served as the senior features editor of House & Garden from 1998 to 2007.

Cerio says, “Stewardship is a better word than ownership to describe the way we feel about our new responsibilities. We treasure Antiques’ legacy as a place where scholars, collectors and all those who are enthusiastic about the arts feel equally at home—and we are honored to be its custodians.”

After 15 years as an American art dealer and gallery director, Sparacin joined The Magazine Antiques in September 2011 and was named publisher in 2015. “We believe in the market, in the magazine and in scholarship,” he says, adding that, from a commercial perspective, print advertising is still an essential investment in brand building.

Cerio and Sparacin see a cross-generational purpose to what they do. In addition to its bi-monthly print publication and website, The Magazine Antiques, founded in 1922, produces regular newsletters and maintains a multi-platform social media presence. According to its website, it has a print circulation of 30,000 and 7,500 unique web visits monthly. Its e-newsletter has 13,000 subscribers.

The magazine’s daily Instagram feed is overseen by the magazine’s editor-at-large, decorative arts historian Glenn Adamson, who also contributes the finely reasoned “Critical Thinking/Difficult Issues” column, published in each print issue.

Under Cerio’s watch the magazine launched the monthly podcast “Curious Objects,” available on iTunes, SoundCloud and other podcast platforms. Industry consultant Michael Diaz-Griffith, former associate executive director of the Winter Show, has recently joined Benjamin Miller, director of research at S. J. Shrubsole, as co-host of the series.

Cerio takes an expansive view of antiques. “We see them as the arts of the past that tell stories. We plan to tell those stories in ever-richer ways—digitally, in print, and through live programming.”

For the time being, staff will continue working out of offices on West 36th Street in New York City. Sparacin, who is 43, says, “We joke that we are a 100-year-old start-up company.  We have a young staff but a loyal following that has been with us for many years. We are not going to alienate print readers, but on the digital side we want to go to where the young people are. If they are not reading the magazine on the train, we want them looking at our Instagram feed and our newsletters.”

For more information, visit www.themagazineantiques.com.