LIKE many portraitists, John Singer Sargent had to endure the pique of sitters who did not like the results. A portrait, he once said, is a painting "with a little something wrong about the mouth."

When the sitter for this week's cover by Italian Painter Pietro Annigoni saw the finished sketch at No. 10 Downing Street one morning last week, he wondered at first if there wasn't something a little wrong about the eyes. British Prime Minister Harold Wilson showed the drawing to an aide and asked if his eyes really closed that much. Assured that they did when he was thinking or talking, the Prime Minister warmed up to the work and smiled his approval. He had but one suggestion. He asked that there be sufficient space for him to autograph the thousands of covers that he expects will descend upon him--which happened, as it does with most subjects, the first time he was on our cover (Oct. 11, 1963).

Annigoni, who is best known in Britain for his portraits of the Royal Family and probably most remembered by TIME readers for his covers of Pope John XXIII and John F. Kennedy, is one of a score of artists regularly commissioned by TIME.

Their styles are many, ranging from the perceptive realism of Boris Chaliapin, Bernard Safran and Robert Vickrey through the intricate design of Boris Artzybasheff and the impressionistic dash of Henry Koerner to the pop of Andy Warhol.

Unlike nearly all other portraits, the paintings for TIME'S cover are not commissioned by the subjects and need not necessarily please them; they must satisfy the artist and be acceptable to the editors. They are not expected to be photographic-indeed, like all great portraiture, they must be much more. They have elements of biography, history and, of course, journalism. These elements are brought forth by the artists--each in his own style of execution, each according to his own insights and quite often with his own form of comment. In total, the artists produce the qualities that the editors want for TIME covers--honesty, interest, excitement, variety.

THREE recent covers provoked comment from an extraordinary number of readers with insights of their own. All three were strong and inherently controversial works --Rufino Tamayo's stoic study of Actress Jeanne Moreau (TIME, March 5); Ben Shahn's volatile gouache of Martin Luther King (March 19); Sidney Nolan's evanescent whirl of Dancer Rudolf Nureyev (April 16). Some readers found them unusually exciting; others objected vigorously, and a few thought them downright malicious.

The latter they definitely were not, either on the part of TIME or the painters, whose feelings for their subjects ranged from affection to reverence. There were varied reactions among the editors too ("That's not the Jeanne Moreau I know and love," complained one), but there was general agreement that these were fascinating works of art, which should be presented to the public.

It is said that portraiture is a languishing art form, but whoever said it surely did not have TIME in mind.

In the 42 years since our first issue, the editors have commissioned more than 1,500 portraits reflecting many schools, a wide variety of techniques and, we believe, deep and rewarding insights.

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