Hodgson & Graves hired Samuel Carter Hall as editor of Art Union Monthly Journal, assisted by James Dafforne.

The London publisher George Virtue bought a share of the business in 1848, with Hall remaining as editor, and they renamed the periodical The Art Journal in 1849.

[2] In 1851, as part of the "Great Exhibition" of that year, The Art Journal featured Hall's engravings of 150 pictures from the private collections of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

The early issues of the magazine, published monthly,[1] strongly supported the artists of The Clique, and after 1850 it became associated with opposition to the emerging Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB), which Hall considered to be a reactionary movement.

The Art Journal's most notable essayists included Ralph Nicholson Wornum, Thomas Wright, Frederick William Fairholt, Edward Lewes Cutts, and Llewellynn Jewitt.