Some of you may have recognized the name Maurits Escher in the story in TIME'S Art section last week about the success of Escher's first U.S. exhibition. Escher was first introduced to TIME readers three years ago. His U.S. show was a direct outgrowth of that earlier introduction.

It all started in the winter of 1951 when our part-time correspondent in Holland, Israel Shenker, heard about the work of Escher, a little known Dutch graphic artist, and tracked him down. Shenker was struck by Escher's technique and cabled our editors that he was worth reporting. The result was a long story which described Escher's "brilliantly conceived" work, and was illustrated with pictures of his prints (TIME, April 2, 1951).

Immediately after reading the story, TIME Reader Charles Alldredge of Washington, D.C. sent a bank draft and an order for prints to Escher in Holland. He liked what he got so well that he ordered more. Several of Alldredge's friends became equally enthusiastic and began buying Escher prints by mail order too. Alldredge began plumping for an Escher exhibition in Washington, organized a committee of sponsors to back the showing and talked the Whyte Gallery into a date. Last week TIME was able to report that the show was both a critical and commercial success. Prints were selling so fast that a new supply had to be ordered from Holland.

This is just one example of how TIME, in a sense, both covers and stimulates the news in the field of art. That field, as Art Editor Alexander Eliot interprets it, covers more than just painting. We have had, for example, stories on such subjects as the rediscovery of Roman mosaics, Navajo sand painting and modern architecture. There have also been reports on playground sculpture, park design, African carvings and U.S. folk art.

Both Art Editor Eliot and our correspondents are always on the lookout for new artists and artisans who may be recognized locally but are unknown elsewhere, and who are important enough to introduce to TIME readers. When Eliot was traveling in Spain in 1952, he met Francisco Cossio who had never had an exhibition in the U.S. but was acclaimed at home as one of Spain's foremost contemporaries. TIME'S story on Cossio (Sept. 21, 1953) was accompanied by a full-page color reproduction of his mural of St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. An example of a new artist is Vienna-born Artist Henry Koerner (now a U.S. citizen), first spotted by TIME in 1947. Later, he was considered important enough for us to reproduce in color four pages of his work (TIME, March 27, 1950).

Almost every week we get letters from TIME readers commenting on how useful they find our coverage of the news of art. Wrote one: "You may like to know that I remove the Art section of TIME each week and place it in a loose-leaf binder, thus making a valuable and useful art collection."

We might add that this reader will have a record of a kind of journalism that we are very proud of. For in our Art section, as elsewhere in TIME, we strive to combine good reporting, writing and good pictures with critical judgment. We believe that this combination was well illustrated in our report (Oct. 4) of the restoration of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. TIME was the first national magazine in the U.S. to publish pictures of this fully restored 456-year-old mural. In this week's Art section, we contrast modern sacred art with the old masters, supplementing the story with a full color reproduction of The Virgin and Child, with Saints and a Carthusian Donor by Jan van Eyck and Petrus Christus.

Cordially yours,

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.