It is. A Magazine for Abstract Art
| Editor | Philip Pavia |
|---|---|
| Categories | Fine arts periodical |
| Frequency | irregular |
| Format | All but one issue is four-color, heavily illustrated paperback, with writing from contributing artists |
| Circulation | Limited edition: No more than 8,000 per issue |
| Publisher | Second Half Publishing |
| Founder | Philip Pavia |
| Founded | 1958 |
| First issue | Spring 1958 |
| Final issue Number | Autumn 1965 Issue No. 6 |
| Based in | New York City |
| Language | English |
It is. A Magazine for Abstract Art (Spring 1958 – Autumn 1965) was an influential limited edition fine arts magazine that only published six issues in its seven years of existence. Founded by the abstract expressionist sculptor Philip Pavia, the magazine's contributors included a who's who of some of the 20th century's most important artists. Although it primarily focused on painters and sculptors like Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Helen Frankenthaler, Jackson Pollock and Isamu Noguchi, it also published artists of other kinds, like musician John Cage and poet Allen Ginsberg. Collectively, the magazines served to catalyze, and catalogue, the contemporaneous life cycle of abstract expressionist thought, from creation to mature expression. Reference to the magazine appears in the archives of Picasso, Motherwell and André Breton, as well as collector Peggy Guggenheim, critic Clement Greenberg and nearly two dozen others.