Zachary recalled. “But he was no prima donna. He worked in the most
fantastic way. For example, I would come in, say, at seven o’clock in the
evening with the idea of how many pages we had for an issue, and how
many would be devoted to each story. I would come back [the next day],
and Holy Christ, there was this magnificent layout. He used the photostat
machine like a note pad. He would get stats of every photo, often different
sizes of the same piece, in tiny increments that might vary from a quarter
inch to an inch, or from an inch to two inches, and so on. You would see
him surrounded by all these stats. But as he put them down, my God, all
of a sudden a spread materialized beautifully proportioned, everything in
scale, with just the right amount of white space, type and picture mass. I
learned so many nuances of art directing just from watching him.”
Portfoliopremiered in late 1949 and lasted for only three issues.
During this time, Zachary was also editor of Jazzways, a one-shot
magazine on the folkways of jazz. The cover was designed by Paul Rand
and among the interior photographers was Berenice Abbott. In addition
Zachary and Rosenthal published paperback photo albums under the
Zebra Books imprint. These were the first of their kind to present good
photojournalistic portfolios for just twenty-five cents. The titles included
Murder Incorporated, the first book on the Mafia;Life and Death in
Hollywood, a pre–Kenneth Anger look at the foibles of the glitter capital;
and Naked City, the first collection of pictures by famed New York street
photographer Weegee. Each sold between 150,000and 250,000copies with
all profits poured back into Portfolio.
The third and last issue of Portfoliowas its most beautiful. To
underscore Brodovitch’s concept of this magazine as analog to film, the
cover for # 3 was the image of a film strip. But the dream of an ad-less
magazine had turned into a nightmare. Financial problems did not weaken
Zachary’s resolve to publish (he even approached Henry Luce, publisher of
Timeand Life, to buy the magazine). But in 1951 the prime financial backer,
George Rosenthal, Sr., decided to summarily kill Portfoliorather than incur
further losses. Had it continued who knows what impact Portfoliowould
have had on magazines of the era. More than fifty years have passed and
this special magazine is a landmark of design history.
tuis.
(Tuis.)
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