The latest cover by the artist Kadir Nelson, “Summertime City,” could be seen as the continuation of a theme. Nelson, who went to school at the Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn, has often turned to that borough’s streets for inspiration, with past covers featuring a game of stickball and a father and daughter sharing a moment on a stoop. We recently talked to Nelson about his affection for the city, especially in the summer, and his influences.
Some of your covers are set at the beach, and others have riffed on Brooklyn street life. Do you enjoy both equally?
I grew up on both coasts and went to school in New York. I love the beach and the ocean, but I was also a city kid, so I’d say, yes, I do equally enjoy urban settings, particularly Brooklyn, since I spent many of my formative years there.
When you sketch those images, are you trying to capture a specific memory, or an ideal? The goggles here are so specific.
I was poring over photographs of neighborhood kids playing in the street, and I found an old photo from the nineteen-sixties of a kid wearing goggles as he basked in the spray unleashed by a fire hydrant. It made perfect sense to me. If you can’t make it to the pool or the beach, why not still wear goggles? It was so imaginative and practical. For some kids, the fire hydrant is the pool or the ocean.
You’ve drawn stickball, stoops, and hydrants. What are some other summer traditions you’re fond of?
Every year, I look forward to my family reunion. I get to see and catch up with my family and friends, play board games and basketball, enjoy a great feast, and talk the night away.
Who are your influences, in terms of artists who have depicted city life?
There are plenty of artists who have painted lovely city scenes, including Rockwell, Eakins, Hopper, and Ernie Barnes. But the urban images I paint are actually informed not by them but by photographers like Gordon Parks and James Van Der Zee, mostly for historical accuracy.
You’re painting in oil, a time-consuming and painstaking medium in the digital age. Why are you so attached to oil painting?
I love the oil medium. It’s timeless and has been used for hundreds of years. I want to create artwork that will live outside of the printed medium or the computer. I like to think that I’m creating fine art that happens to work as a cover for The New Yorker.
See below to see more covers by Kadir Nelson:
Covers, cartoons, and more.
