NEW YORK—Bruce Wolmer, the former editor-in-chief of Art & Auction magazine and an intellectual heavyweight in the international art world for over 20 years, died in New York of complications from diabetes on August 10. He was 59 years old.

A widely published freelance critic and journalist for a bevy of publications, from the Paris Review to the Wall Street Journal, Wolmer also held senior positions at a number of art magazines before joining Art & Auction in 1990. Wolmer served as editor of Art & Antiques and executive editor of ARTnews.

At Art & Auction, Wolmer navigated the magazine through four distinctly different owner-publisher regimes and was intimately involved in the magazine’s growth and stature as the art market rose, fell, and recuperated to its present bull strength. As he aptly put it in his last editorial for the magazine, in October 2006, “At times, frankly, things were touch and go.”

Wolmer is survived by his widow, Colleen Babington, and his mother, Elaine Katz.

Judd Tully is Editor at Large of Art & Auction magazine.