February 4, 2022

Today as The Sunday Times Magazine celebrates its 60th anniversary, we look back at some of its’ most iconic covers.

 The first edition of the magazine, or as it was called then The Sunday Times Colour Section was published on February 4 1962. It was revolutionary; newspapers in those days were monochrome and the idea of putting a colourful magazine with a paper was seen as a big gamble.

It was a gamble that paid-off, it attracted a quarter of a million new readers thanks to the outstanding quality of its original photography and writing. Since then countless other newspapers across the world have launched their own colour supplements.

The Sunday Times Magazine led the way for quality journalism and photojournalism and continues to do so to this day. It has worked with some of the greatest photographers including war photographer Don McCullin, the cofounder of the illustrious Magnum photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, the first woman photographer at the agency Eve Arnold, and iconic fashion photographers David Bailey and Terry O’Neill.

It isn’t just about the images, right from the start the magazine prized the printed word. The founding issues included The Living Daylights, a new James Bond short story by Ian Fleming. Other renowned writers who have appeared in the magazine’s pages include Martin Amis, Bruce Chatwin, Nicholas Tomalin, AA Gill and Lynn Barber. Pick it up today and you’ll likely find such illustrious names as Jeremy Clarkson, Christina Lamb, Decca Aitkenhead and Adam Kay.

Krissi Murison, editor of The Sunday Times Magazine said: “It may have begun as a risky experiment but 60 years on The Sunday Times Magazine is still one of the most popular parts of the paper. Whether we appear on your phone or still land with a thump on your doorstep, our agenda-setting mix of stories, interviews and eye-popping visuals makes the magazine the definitive read every Sunday.”