Editor's Page

EDITOR'S

IN CELEBRATION of Arizona Highways' 65 years of publication and its traditional emphasis on photographic quality, I invite your attention to two special projects. The first is ready for viewers now: a traveling exhibition entitled "Timeless Images from Arizona Highways." It comprises 85 splendid photographs reproduced in generous format (some are 48 by 72 inches, the smallest 16 by 20), and it opened in early February in Tucson. Later it will move on to Phoenix, Tempe, and Flagstaff.

J. Peter Mortimer, former picture editor of the magazine, researched more than a half century of Arizona Highways photography in making his selections for the exhibition and for a related project now well under way: a book with the same theme and title as the show. The collection of images chosen for display handsomely enlarged, printed, and mounted was unveiled on February 3 at the Old Pueblo Museum in the Foothills. Center, Ina Road and La Cholla Boulevard, Tucson. It will remain there through March 22, then travel to the Valley Bank Center, Central Avenue and Van Buren Street, Phoenix, where it can be seen from March 25 through April 6.

After the two weeks in downtown Phoenix, the exhibition will move again, this time to the Hayden Library on the campus of Arizona State University in Tempe for the period from April 11 to May 14. The final location will be the Museum of Northern Arizona on Fort Valley Road in Flagstaff. Dates are June 2 through August 31.

The 85 images of Arizona's land and people are the work of 38 photographers. For longtime readers of this magazine, the list is replete with familiar names, from Timeless image: This dramatic scene of Joshua trees silhouetted against a desert sunset appeared in the June 1979 Arizona Highways. JOSEF MUENCH Ansel Adams and Ray Manley to David Muench and Jack W. Dykinga. The selected photographs include the magazine's first four-color cover (July 1938); the opening page of its first color portfolio (December 1940); and the cover of the nation's first all-color issue of a consumer magazine (December 1946).

The photographs chosen for the exhibition are representative of nearly 200 "timeless images" that will appear in the book bearing the same title and scheduled for publication next September. The 176-page, 10-by-13-inch volume was designed by Gary Bennett, and includes a highly readable text by Robert C. Dyer.

Together, these two special projects provide a fitting acknowledgment of the vital role that superior photography, and especially color photography, has played in the success of Arizona Highways over the years.

The May 1986 issue of Arizona Highways was the parent of an award-winning book, Beyond Tradition: Contemporary Indian Art and Its Evolution. Now the parent has become a grandparent. Lois and Jerry Jacka, the writer and photographer who produced that memorable 1986 issue, have completed a videotape given the same title as their book. Its glowing photography and interpretive narration cover an astonishing range of achievement in Native American art. This month it will be shown at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The video is available through Arizona Highways, 2039 W. Lewis Ave., Phoenix, 85009; (602) 2581000 ($34.95 plus $3.00 postage). -Merrill Windsor