COURTESY JAVIER PES
After a year as editor of The Art Newspaper, Javier Pes is quitting to “pursue other projects,” according to a letter he sent to its staff.
“I inherited a great team and they never failed to deliver, come hell and high water,” Pes told ARTnews. “Literally the latter when roads closed to Randall’s Island during Frieze New York last spring.”
Before taking over the top spot at the paper last June, he had been deputy editor since 2009. He joined the company the year before.
“After almost a decade at The Art Newspaper, I feel very fortunate to have been the editor for the past year and before that the deputy editor of the best respected news publications in the art world,” Pes said in his resignation letter.
Pes added later in his letter, “This has been a hard decision to make but the time feels right to leave at the top of my game to write about a greater variety of artists and museums and pursue other projects.”
Pes’s announcement follows the news earlier this month that James Hewes, the interim CEO of The Art Newspaper, is joining FIPP as president and CEO.
The Art Newspaper, which was founded in 1990, is currently owned by Inna Bazhenova, who acquired it in 2014.