Behind the Covers

A particularly lively conversation was sparked among our team while deciding on this month’s cover. When we had finally whittled it down to four options (there’s that much great artwork inside!), that’s when it started to get interesting.

Our initial top pick presented an ethical conundrum that had never come up before. In brief, the painting was not going to be in the show we were covering and, in fact, had already sold. A similar piece by the artist would be in the show but wasn’t ready yet. Could we run the image of the original anyway with a disclaimer? We decided no. Our core objective is to present fresh, available works that are ready to be the next addition to your personal collection.

Another piece was a gorgeous rendering of a woman breastfeeding. But the diversity of viewpoints about putting it on the cover was enough of an indicator that maybe it wasn’t the ideal choice.

It was down to two. One was “a very American Art Collector cover”—a highly contemporary portrayal of a beautiful woman in a state of enigmatic reverie. It is an incredible piece. A central portion of the figure is painted in finely-detailed realism with the rest of her form dissolving into a choppy sea of gray abstraction. Hands down a cover any day. Our big hang-up? We often feature paintings of beautiful women on our covers. Understandable, but we don’t want to fall prey to redundancy.

A consensus finally gelled around the stunning portrait of the two horses by Allie Louise that you see on this month’s cover. Created in soft pastel, the piece is stunning and a technical marvel, and it ties into a major theme of the May issue—wildlife. It also brings the kind of variety we strive to deliver, not only through our covers, but inside every single issue.

I share this story so that you have a better idea of our process behind the scenes. Our choices are anything but arbitrary. We consider ideas and options from every conceivable angle (sometimes to the point of exhausted exasperation). On the surface, we were picking a cover, something we do every month. But, as the “face of our magazine,” the selection process is part of the constant clarification and fine-tuning of detail that, like a sculptor, we do to get closer to our ideal and, hopefully, yours too.

Enjoy the May issue!

Sarah Gianelli
Managing Editor
sgianelli@americanartcollector.com