Sonny’s Bridge: Treasured Quilt by Faith Ringgold Covers New Yorker Magazine, a Memorial Tribute to the Celebrated Artist
THE NEW YORKER is memorializing Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) with a cover tribute. “Sonny’s Bridge” (1986) by Ringgold is featured on the May 6 edition of the magazine. The painted quilt celebrates tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins. He’s pictured playing his horn high atop a bridge with the New York City skyline in the background. The scene...
Cover Portrait: Envisioning Fall for The New Yorker, Kadir Nelson Illustrates Couple on a Rainy Day in Dumbo, Brooklyn
AS THE DAYS OF NOVEMBER roll by, the rainfall that often accompanies the fall months is at the center of Kadir Nelson‘s latest cover for The New Yorker. The artist’s double portrait depicts a couple clad in rain gear standing in the middle of a street in Dumbo, the Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood whose name is...
Diana Ejaita’s Fashion Illustration ‘Lines of Beauty’ Draws From African and Western Art Traditions
A RECENT FASHION ILLUSTRATION by Diana Ejaita could easily serve as a graphic designed to promote the “Africa Fashion” exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. The portrait was not commissioned by the museum, however, but rather a magazine. “Lines of Beauty” graced the cover of the Sept. 25 issue of The New Yorker. The special Fall...
Family Man: South African Artist Pola Maneli Remembers Civil Rights Icon Martin Luther King Jr., as Father Figure
FOR HIS FIRST COVER of The New Yorker, South African artist Pola Maneli made a portrait of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He remembers the civil rights leader as a family man, depicting him seated and surrounded by his four young children—Yolanda, Martin III, Dexter, and Bernice. Maneli delivers a lovely portrait of the...
New Yorker Collaborates with Faith Ringgold, Artist’s Jazz-Inspired Story Quilt Covers New Style & Design Issue
CELEBRATIONS OF ONE OF AMERICA’s most insightful artists are finally arriving at a pace that measures up to the significance and longevity of her practice. Harlem-born Faith Ringgold, 91, is being recognized all over her hometown. Currently on view at the New Museum, “Faith Ringgold: American People” is her first full-scale retrospective in New...
Remembering Martin Luther King Jr.: Illustrator Ronald Wimberly’s First New Yorker Cover is Inspired by Storied Civil Rights Photograph
THE TRANSFORMATIONAL civil rights, human rights, and democracy work of Martin Luther King Jr., was largely understood and represented by public events—soaring and poignant speeches, strategic marches and protests, and multiple arrests. On Sept. 3, 1958, King was arrested outside the courthouse in Montgomery, Ala. Illustrated by Ronald Wimberly, the moment is captured on...
Nina Chanel Abney’s First New Yorker Cover Raises a Glass to Post-Covid Return of New York Social Culture
FOR HER FIRST COVER of The New Yorker, Nina Chanel Abney made an image that celebrates a return to socializing. The portrait references Eustace Tilley, the magazine’s famous dandy mascot. Abney’s version is a Black female dandy who appears on the May 31 issue of the magazine. Enjoying a cocktail outdoors among a few...
Women’s Suffrage: Grace Lynne Haynes Painted Sojourner Truth Using Vibrant Colors and Vividly Patterned Textiles to ‘Make the Portrait Contemporary’
ONE OF THE FIRST AMERICANS to employ photography as a promotional tool, Sojourner Truth (1797-1883) copyrighted her image and used it to help fund her “sojourns” as a traveling preacher. She sold cartes de visite bearing her image as souvenirs to those who came to hear her speak about the abolition of slavery and women’s...
The New Yorker: Kadir Nelson’s ‘Distant Summer’ Cover Invokes Pandemic Protocol, Frivolity of Youth, and American Symbolism
“Distant Summer” by Kadir Nelson. | The New Yorker, July 6 and July 3, 2020 SHORTLY AFTER DELIVERING a sobering cover documenting the history of racial injustice, violence, and killing endured by Africa Americans throughout U.S. history, culminating with the murder of George Floyd, Kadir Nelson produced an homage to childhood summer joy. The...
Kadir Nelson’s New Yorker Cover is a Monument to George Floyd and Reminder of Long History of Violence Against Black People in America
THE BANNER FLAG HANGING outside a window at the NAACP’s Fifth Avenue headquarters in New York City declaring “A Man Was Lynched Yesterday.” Emmett Till’s big bright eyes and round smiling face before he was lynched and found dead in a river in Money, Miss., at age 14. The textured scars on the back...
Inspired by Charles White, Kadir Nelson Delivers Last-Minute Aretha Franklin Cover for The New Yorker
A FEW HOURS after Aretha Franklin died yesterday morning, Kadir Nelson delivered an illustration of the Queen of Soul that will grace the cover of The New Yorker magazine’s Aug. 27 issue. The emotional illustration depicts Franklin in profile. Wearing a choir robe, her head is thrown back as she belts out a song....
Fresh From Art School, Illustrator Loveis Wise Lands New Yorker Cover
The cover for the New Yorker’s new fiction issue is illustrated by Loveis Wise. THE LATEST EDITION of The New Yorker features a black mother and child on the cover. The image by Loveis Wise illustrates the magazine’s new Fiction Issue, a double issue dated June 4 and June 11. Wise, who graduated from...
Kadir Nelson Channels Nostalgic Brooklyn with Stickball Cover for The New Yorker
“Stickball Alley” by Kadir Nelson THERE IS A REAL SENSE OF NOSTALGIA in Kadir Nelson‘s image of a young African American boy in a striped shirt and blue cap emblazoned with a “B.” Holding a stick drawn back toward his right shoulder, he stares intently awaiting the pitch of the ball. In the background,...
Kadir Nelson Depicts Father and Daughter on Brooklyn Stoop for New Yorker Cover
ENVISIONING NEW YORK IN THE FALL, Kadir Nelson‘s latest cover illustration for The New Yorker magazine depicts a father and daughter sitting on the stoop of a Brooklyn brownstone. “Sitting on the stoop is such a New York thing,” Nelson told Françoise Mouly, art editor of The New Yorker. “Brownstones, stoops, leaves turning: that’s...
For The New Yorker, Kadir Nelson Captures Summer at the Beach
Video by CBS This Morning OVER THE WEEKEND, Kadir Nelson appeared on CBS This Morning. The Sunday television program profiled the illustrator whose work is familiar to many, while he remains relatively unknown. The latest edition of The New Yorker features Nelson’s take on “A Day at the Beach,” a powerful, very American image...
A Browse Through the ‘Ideal Bookshelf’ of Hilton Als
THE IDEAL BOOKSHELF of Hilton Als is an economic selection of seven books including “The Price of the Ticket: Collected Nonfiction, 1948-1985” by James Baldwin and titles by Marcel Proust, Truman Capote, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Anton Checkhov. The New Yorker writer’s choices are included in “My Ideal Bookshelf,” a compilation of artist Jane Mount’s...
