Dear TIME-Reader:

BRITONS were touched and some -- were shocked by the news: their favorite Princess, Margaret, is in love."

So TIME reported in the summer of 1953. After the first authoritative news of the young princess' romance appeared, royalty and officialdom closed ranks and, in proper British fashion, drew a curtain of silence around Margaret's private life. But, as any poet will tell you, love is not easily contained; the high drama went on. Britons of all ranks speculated and gossiped. Rarely a week passed without some member of our London Bureau running down a rumor, usually into a blind alley. Occasionally, correspondents came upon an odd bit with a ring of authenticity. But they had to grope through a maze of firm-jawed British reticence to learn even such a simple fact as the name of Group Captain Peter Townsend's prep school.

Last week, as the romance neared its inevitable climax, their patient watchfulness and application paid off. We had--from more than 500 sources, including palace intimates, government officials, society leaders, airmen and horsemen--all the pieces to round out this week's cover story.

FOR the cover, Manhattan Artist John Koch, 46, painted the regally simple and romantic portrait of the English princess. It was Koch's first painting of royalty. The subjects who come to his Long Island and Central Park studios are, said i the self-taught artist who had his first one-man show at 16 in Detroit, just people--a few famous, some rich, "but all nice."

Koch, besides being a painter of renown, is a collector of note. His private collection includes works by El Greco, Rubens, Boucher, Tintoretto, Vuillard, and numerous modern Americans, among them the late Reginald Marsh. Koch was delighted to hear that this issue contains the latest news (see ART) of the work of his longtime friend, Marsh, whose hasty sketch of Koch, drawn two years ago, is shown here.

THE retrospective report on Marsh's work recalls that he was among the American artists represented in TIME'S first Art Col or spread, which was published at Christmas time 1934, when foreign art was all the rage. Reggie Marsh himself at one time noted in a terse autobiographical sketch: "Deep Depression. Art World and Fords and Rockefellers conquered by Mexicans. Emphasis on the social conscious. The hung head. TIME Magazine launches 'American Scene' painters." And he added with modest satisfaction: "I seem to be included.'"

Cordially yours,

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