'This thesis examines the role and impact of art magazines in Australia from 1963, with the emergence of the major art magazine of this period, An and Australia, to 1990. It covers all art magazines in this period, from the major to the minor ones. It does not cover the bulletins of the respective state or national art galleries nor does it cover craft or architecture magazines other than Craft Arts, which included articles on the visual arts. Craft and architecture magazines deserve detailed study but lie outside the scope of this thesis. It is to be hoped that a critical study of these magazines will appear without too much delay. The thesis includes a critique of the Visual Arts/Craft Board of the Australia Council funding of Australian art journals, and the implications of this funding. Such a critique has been included because the period covered saw a major transformation of the visual arts world in Australia, with the rapid increase in government funding of the arts, a change comparable in its magnitude to the emergence in France in the seventeenth century of the Royal Academy, which soon replaced the painters' guilds in power and prestige.' This period saw the establishment of the National Gallery of Australia, as well as Australia's ongoing involvement in overseas events such as the Venice Biennale and various overseas art fairs. At the beginning of this history the major magazine that began publication, Art and Australia, operated in the market place as a commercial entity. There also existed the very small but vital Broadsheets of the state branches of the Contemporary Art Society of Australia. By the end of the period that this history covers, 1990, there was a large number of art magazines in Australia as a result of a major increase in government funding of the arts, with many of the magazines in existence dependent on government support and with some connected to tertiary institutions.' (Paragraph one, Introduction)