A Letter From the Publisher

By Robert L. Miller

This week marks the 16th time that Jesus has appeared on the cover of TIME. It seemed appropriate to Art Director Rudy Hoglund that this portrait should draw upon the wealth of historical material depicting the face of Christ. The resulting cover is composed of details from 17 images of Jesus. They range from a 6th century Italian mosaic to stained glass that was possibly crafted for the Emperor Charlemagne to a contemporary portrait by Englishman Curtis Hooper based on the Shroud of Turin. "Different cultures in different periods of history have had various notions of what Jesus looked like," says Hoglund. "I wanted to reflect this on the cover." Linda Freeman, Hoglund's assistant, searched art-history archives and came up with more than 100 prospective images for the project. Tom Bentkowski, LIFE magazine's director of design, conceived the idea for the composite portrait and then constructed it. At left is the gallery from which the assembled image of Jesus was drawn. The pictures are arranged to serve as a key to the cover portrait; a detail from the mosaic in the upper left corner was used for the upper left part of the composite, and so on.