From the June 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
In 1925, a small group of art lovers including the dealer Joseph Duveen and the art historian Tancred Borenius published the first issue of Apollo. They came from a cultural tradition that was as international as it was British. Just as the magazine’s owners, editor and publishers shared an outlook not confined by borders, geographical or otherwise, so too did the writing. One piece in particular from the first issue seems to set the tone: an essay, by the editor and writer Dorothy Dudley Short, titled ‘Music, Art and Life’. There is something reassuringly ambitious about trying to encompass all those subjects in an article that runs over a mere three pages. But ambition has never been a problem for Apollo. A century later, it remains the only magazine that covers all art, from the prehistoric to the contemporary.
The publishing landscape has changed a fair bit over the last hundred years. Apollo’s first issue appeared at a time when magazines were the harbinger of technological progress. Few of the specialist titles that sprang up then still exist. Avant-garde magazines such as Ma, Blok and The Blue Review exploited relatively cheap printing to distribute their cutting-edge ideas. But while Apollo has a reputation for connoisseurship, it has never believed this to be antithetical to a wide audience. It has always published essays for the cultured public, rather than the cognoscenti only. And as avant-garde movements have often shown, if you are too extreme in pursuing your vision you run the risk of talking only to yourselves. Or, as a character in Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Savage Detectives says of a fictional poetry magazine: ‘It folded […] just as people were starting to know who we were. What people? Well, other poets of course.’
The first-ever title page of Apollo
In other words, Apollo is pluralist. It is not a magazine that is interested in advocating for a single way of being. Apollo has always engaged with different strands of art history – indeed, different histories. In its current iteration, at least, it hopes to tease out connections not just for the art historian but for anyone who is interested in thinking about the wider world. Apollo strives to join the dots – not to make the world smaller, but to show how large and interesting it can be.
This issue marks the celebration of our centenary year. One of the ways we’ve done this can be seen on our cover. The first ever edition featured an elegant drawing of the Apollo Belvedere on its front page. We’ve repeated the motif with a 19th-century photograph of the same profile from the Alinari Foundation – the world’s oldest collection of photography and a source of many treasures. The picture was taken by Domenico Anderson in c. 1890. This image of an ancient artwork was taken using a brand-new technology; here today, it alludes to both the past and the future.
Detail of the Apollo Belvedere at the Vatican Museums, photographed by Domenico Anderson in c. 1890. Alinari Archives, Florence
The centenary is a moment to recognise what makes Apollo matter. It is a magazine that enjoys context and depth over superficiality and surface; one that opens up different ways of reading the world around us. That is something worth celebrating.
From the June 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
![Masterpiece [Re]discovery 2022. Photo: Ben Fisher Photography, courtesy of Masterpiece London](http://www.apollo-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/MPL2022_4263.jpg)
Apollo at 100
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From the June 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
In 1925, a small group of art lovers including the dealer Joseph Duveen and the art historian Tancred Borenius published the first issue of Apollo. They came from a cultural tradition that was as international as it was British. Just as the magazine’s owners, editor and publishers shared an outlook not confined by borders, geographical or otherwise, so too did the writing. One piece in particular from the first issue seems to set the tone: an essay, by the editor and writer Dorothy Dudley Short, titled ‘Music, Art and Life’. There is something reassuringly ambitious about trying to encompass all those subjects in an article that runs over a mere three pages. But ambition has never been a problem for Apollo. A century later, it remains the only magazine that covers all art, from the prehistoric to the contemporary.
The publishing landscape has changed a fair bit over the last hundred years. Apollo’s first issue appeared at a time when magazines were the harbinger of technological progress. Few of the specialist titles that sprang up then still exist. Avant-garde magazines such as Ma, Blok and The Blue Review exploited relatively cheap printing to distribute their cutting-edge ideas. But while Apollo has a reputation for connoisseurship, it has never believed this to be antithetical to a wide audience. It has always published essays for the cultured public, rather than the cognoscenti only. And as avant-garde movements have often shown, if you are too extreme in pursuing your vision you run the risk of talking only to yourselves. Or, as a character in Roberto Bolaño’s novel The Savage Detectives says of a fictional poetry magazine: ‘It folded […] just as people were starting to know who we were. What people? Well, other poets of course.’
The first-ever title page of Apollo
In other words, Apollo is pluralist. It is not a magazine that is interested in advocating for a single way of being. Apollo has always engaged with different strands of art history – indeed, different histories. In its current iteration, at least, it hopes to tease out connections not just for the art historian but for anyone who is interested in thinking about the wider world. Apollo strives to join the dots – not to make the world smaller, but to show how large and interesting it can be.
This issue marks the celebration of our centenary year. One of the ways we’ve done this can be seen on our cover. The first ever edition featured an elegant drawing of the Apollo Belvedere on its front page. We’ve repeated the motif with a 19th-century photograph of the same profile from the Alinari Foundation – the world’s oldest collection of photography and a source of many treasures. The picture was taken by Domenico Anderson in c. 1890. This image of an ancient artwork was taken using a brand-new technology; here today, it alludes to both the past and the future.
Detail of the Apollo Belvedere at the Vatican Museums, photographed by Domenico Anderson in c. 1890. Alinari Archives, Florence
The centenary is a moment to recognise what makes Apollo matter. It is a magazine that enjoys context and depth over superficiality and surface; one that opens up different ways of reading the world around us. That is something worth celebrating.
From the June 2025 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here.
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