Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
He could be prickly and sometimes difficult to deal with. But Milton Esterow, who died Oct. 3 at 97, taught me most of what I know about applying the hard-hitting techniques of investigative reporting to artworld controversies.
Here’s what I wrote about him in April 2014, when he sold his prized publication, ARTnews magazine, to Skate Capital Corp., described in the official announcement of the transaction as “a private art and media industry investment vehicle of Sergey Skaterschikov“:
Milton was passionate about art journalism. As a former arts writer at the NY Times, he demanded solid journalistic principles and practices from his writers. During my time as associate editor there in the ’70s, I winced every time he wrote “Who says?” in the margin of my manuscripts. In investigative pieces, every expression of opinion or attempt at analysis had to be backed up with solid evidence or corroborated by experts in the field.
But writers who adhered to his standards got his strong, unflagging support in taking on the artworld establishment. For this reason, he inspired loyalty in those who learned how not to trigger his temper. When I told him I was leaving to write a book and have my first baby, he unexpectedly gave me a parting bonus, in appreciation for my contributions.
He could also be counted on to apply for journalism awards [which helped to enhance the reputation of not only his magazine, but also of his writers]. My work won two during my short stint there: a Society of the Silurians Award for Investigative Reporting and a George Polk Memorial Award for Cultural Reporting. During his four decades at the helm, the magazine won 45 awards for reporting, analysis, criticism, and design.
He also credited me in his Nov. 1, 2002 compilation of reminiscences—Reflections on Three Decades at the Helm of ARTnews.
An excerpt:
In 1978 ARTnews received an award for investigative reporting from the Society of the Silurians, the organization of veteran editors and reporters. It was the first time such an honor had been bestowed on an art magazine. Among the articles cited were “The Art Bills: Pluses and Minuses” by Albert Elsen. He wrote that the flurry of recent proposed legislation included three enlightened bills—on moral rights, arts financing, and estate taxation—and a resale-royalties bill that was “suicidal.” Also cited was “The Care and Feeding of Donors,” part of a two-part article by Lee Rosenbaum [emphasis added] that raised questions about museum officials giving donors all sorts of special favors.
Perhaps most importantly, one of my articles helped ARTnews to win a 1980 George Polk Memorial Award in Cultural Reporting for “investigative reporting in the art world.”
But enough about me. In Milt’s above-linked NY Times obit, written by Jeré Longman (who seems to write mostly about dead luminaries in sports, not the arts), we learned that “a draft of his [Esterow’s] final article, about the restitution of art stolen during the Holocaust—written as always on Mr. Esterow’s 1950 Royal typewriter…—was submitted before he died and remains scheduled for publication in the near future.”
Leave it to Milton to score a posthumous byline!