A Letter From the Publisher

By John A. Meyers

In March 1951, Time Inc. Editor-in-Chief Henry Luce directed that from then on at least one color page should appear in every issue of TIME. Four-color photographs had made their debut in the magazine years before Luce's decree (in a 1934 survey of U.S. Depression-era painting, including Grant Wood's classic, American Gothic). But color was expensive, not always accurate and + required such a long time from photo to printed page that it was used only to illustrate feature stories.

Over the ensuing years, as the technology of both photography and printing improved, TIME's commitment to color grew. By 1975 TIME was running two or three color pages per issue, though most of that was still for early-closing stories. In 1977 the magazine made a decision to push strongly into the world of four-color news photography. By 1979 TIME averaged twelve pages of color; in 1982, 18. Last year there were 24 color pages per issue, not counting more than 100 "bonus" color pages used to illustrate 1984's blockbuster events: the Olympics, the political campaigns and the elections.

In 1985, nearly 34 years after Luce decided his magazine needed color, TIME is taking the ultimate step: it will be essentially an all-color magazine--the only such newsmagazine. Says Managing Editor Ray Cave: "As technology has made color illustration economically feasible, we have maintained a firm commitment to moving toward a four-color magazine. Now, except when there are no satisfactory color pictures of a news event or deadlines that cannot be met, we will illustrate virtually all of the magazine in color."

One of the key figures in this decades-long transformation is Picture Editor Arnold Drapkin, who was hired in 1951 to help start TIME's new color projects department. "When I began," he recalls, "color photos had to close five weeks before their appearance in the magazine. Then, from the mid-'50s to the late '60s, I flew from New York City to our Chicago printing plant almost every week because our color pages went to press several days before everything else. With today's capabilities, if we get color pictures on a Saturday afternoon, we can have them in the magazine that goes to press Sunday morning." This remarkable advance has required the expansion of the ranks of those dealing with color photos, from Drapkin and an editor to 30 people who supervise the handling of an average of 20,000 color pictures a week. "It is a lot more demanding to edit color than black and white," says Drapkin. "But it certainly gives our readers a far richer and more exciting newsmagazine."