In the spirit of Christmas, we turn aside from the demands of the cold war, the urgencies of politics and the necessity of economics, to devote our cover story to an American artist, whose concern is nature and beauty. Andrew Wyeth is a painter's son, and his sister Henriette, a painter too, is married to Artist Peter Hurd.

Both Wyeth and Hurd have themselves painted covers for TIME: Wyeth did President Eisenhower in 1959; Kurd's most recent was Barry Goldwater in 1961. Now a third member of the family joins our roster of cover artists. This week's cover is the work of Mrs. Hurd and is the seventh portrait she has done of her brother. She painted him in the granary at his home in Chadds Ford, Pa., as he stared through the windows at the familiar bare trees outside. "I wanted him looking at that severe landscape," she says. "If you get him looking at you, you get his warmth and charm. But I wanted to get the painter looking at something he paints, the almost pained look on his face, the search of what the truth is about--that good tough look of his."

Along with the cover story, is a four-page color section of Wyeth's paintings. And along with that and all the other stories in this issue, all of us here at TIME want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas.

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