You have undoubtedly noticed that full-color pages in TIME'S editorial sections--which once appeared as infrequent "extra dividends"--have now become a regular feature in the magazine.

A year ago, Executive Editor Dana Tasker was put in charge of a special project to use color in TIME whenever it helps tell a story better than black-and-white illustration. I think you will agree that color pictures often do add another dimension of understanding to news reporting.

Paintings and art work of all kinds were natural candidates for color treatment, and have been reproduced in TIME'S Art section in every issue since May 28, 1951. TIME has also developed a special type of story in which color pictures have played a major part--reports on areas of the world that have become important in the news. Some which you probably remember were those on the British Isles (TIME, July 2), the Moslem World (Aug. 13), Alberta (Sept. 24), the Industrial South (Dec. 10), Hawaii (Feb. 18) and French Morocco (March 31).

Perhaps the really unique feature in this part of TIME'S color program has been the maps drawn by Robert Chapin. I think you will feel, as I do, that color has given Chapin's maps--one of TIME'S hallmarks for many years--an even greater degree of clarity.

A byproduct of TIME'S color program has been the emergence of Cover Artist Boris Artzybasheff as a color photographer. A good journalist, as well as an imaginative artist, Artzybasheff made the color photographs of booming Alberta and lonely San Salvador (TIME, Oct. 15). Associate Editor John T. McCullough. who was once a news photographer and is now TIME'S color picture editor, has also used his camera to advantage for color supplements on Old Sturbridge Village (TIME, Nov. 5), Hawaii, and, in this issue, Lexington, Ky.

The color pages in TIME'S Art section during the past year have ranged all the way from the work of old masters to that of the most brash of contemporary non-objectivists, reporting both the news about established artists and the new work of contemporary painters, conservative as well as the most radical experimenters. Those of you who have been collecting TIME'S Art color pages now have a gallery of reproductions that includes the work of Toulouse-Lautrec, John Sloan, Andrew Wyeth, El Greco, Vincent Van Gogh, John Marin, Wassily Kandinsky, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Paul Cezanne, Paolo Veronese and Leonardo da Vinci. In addition, the color pages have provided the opportunity to show a wide range of other art forms: from modern church architecture to flower arrangements, from Indian sand painting to luminous sculpture, from 20th century fireworks to Ming ceramics.

To test the simple hypothesis behind TIME'S art color program -- i.e., that since paintings are painted in color, it is better reporting to show them that way -- look at the black-and-white reproduction of Paul Gauguin's Tahitian Landscape shown here, then turn to the Art section and compare it with the same picture in color.

Cordially yours,

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