“It’s been said that ‘every two minutes, humans take more photos than ever existed in total 150 years ago.’ What I love about this image by [artist Boris] Artzybasheff is he shifted the focus to the person behind the lens. And while the cover is from nearly 70 years ago, the image and coverline “Everyman his own artist” certainly applies to every person with a cellphone today.” – D.W. Pine, Creative Director of TIME

Using his trademark style of transforming everyday machines into personalities, Artzybasheff drew a curious “amateur photographer” out of a camera, flash, bag and “strappy” arms.

As TIME wrote in the cover story: “Americans are wrapped in photographs. They are caught up (as one photographer put it) in a “fever of reality.” Just when and how this fever produces true art has been debated almost since the first daguerreotype appeared more than a century ago.”

Artzybasheff was part of the golden age of TIME illustrated covers in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, called the

“ABCs” - Artzybasheff, Ernest Hamlin Baker and Boris Chaliapin. The trio produced 900 TIME covers and created a style that gave the publication character, strength and personality. Artzybasheff painted more than 200 covers from 1941 until his death in 1965.