Arthur Hochstein was the art director of Time magazine for 15 years, through the end of 2009. During his time there he designed over 1000 covers, including some of the most memorable magazine images of recent years. His iconic cover designs include everything from OJ Simpson, 9/11, the War in Iraq, George Bush, and Barack Obama. And although the covers of Time included some of the best illustrators and photographers in the world, many of the covers were photo-illustrated by Hochstein himself, who created numerous humorous and pointed images.

Since Norman Pearlstine, former Editor-in-Chief of Time Inc., joined Bloomberg as Chief Content Officer, many of the staffers at Timehave slowly been trickling over to join him. First, it was Josh Tyrangiel, who now serves as BusinessWeek’s Editor in Chief. Then, it was Arthur Hochstein, Time’s “legendary” art director, who stepped down in 2009 and will now be consulting for both BusinessWeek and Time. Who else is planning to “reunite” with Pearlstine?

The latest issue of the UK edition of Esquire features actor/comedian Ricky Gervais shot with arrows. It’s a visual reference to the famous Muhammad Ali Esquire cover from April 1966, and that cover is, of course, a clever visual nod to the famous paintings of St. Sebastian. And although it may be time to give that particular homage a well-deserved rest, this got us thinking about other magazine covers that have referenced magazine covers. Here’s a brief recent history.

The latest “Destruction of Journalism” debate centers on a Time magazine cover announcing “The New Frugality” — a rather meta choice, considering the flap emerging online about the fee Time paid for for the stock photo used: $30.

Is Time devaluing the worth of photographers? Or is it, like everyone else, straining to find creative ways to maximize budgets that have been slashed to bits? And is this “wrong” or just part of the natural order of things?