According to Terri Griffith and Kathryn Born, the "New Art Examiner" was "the only successful art magazine ever to come out of Chicago." It enjoyed a nearly three-decade long run, and since its founding in 1973 by Jane Addams Allen and Derek Guthrie, no art periodical published in the Windy City has lasted longer or has achieved the critical mass of readers and admirers that it did. Editor Jane Addams Allen, an art historian who studied under Harold Rosenberg at the University of Chicago and a relative of progressive reformer Jane Addams, was influential in developing new writers who later became significant on the New York scene and encouraged a writing style that was lively, personal, and honestly critical. It is cited by its creator as the largest art magazine of the time outside of New York.