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One Baltimore son painted another.
When a representative Elijah E. Cummings He died in October 2019 at the age of 68, becoming the first African-American official to lie in the U.S. Capitol, where he served in the House of Representatives from Maryland’s 7th District for more than two decades.
Official portrait painted by the artist after the congressman’s death in January Jerrel Gibbswill be sacred to posterity in the Capitol, with fewer than 20 of the hundreds of portraits of Black leaders.
For Gibbs, 33, who just started painting six years ago and earned his MFA at the same university. Maryland Institute College of the Arts Last year, the commission said it “changed the way I look at what I’m doing.” “It gave me courage that people wanted to support what I brought to the table and believed I was valuable.”
“Elijah was a hometown man and we thought it would be touching and very Elijah-like for a Baltimore-based artist of color to paint a portrait,” he said. Maya Rockeymoore CummingsHe is the founder, president, and CEO of Global Policy Solutions, who met the congressman in 1997 while interviewing him for his thesis and married him in 2008.
She was asked by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, chaired by her husband, to direct the effort to order a portrait. He, in turn, sought help Baltimore Museum of ArtHe served as a trustee here from 2017 to 2019. Its curators identified a large pool of local artists, and a selection committee of museum and community arts leaders unanimously selected Gibbs, who received $75,000 for the commission.
“Maya felt there was an opportunity to do something that attests to Elijah’s desire to shine a positive light on young people doing great art in Baltimore,” said Christopher Bedford, director of the Baltimore Museum of Art. The committee was looking for someone who “had the gravitas to exist in and between more traditionally designed portraits in the Capitol, but someone with a vocabulary that seemed progressive and contemporary,” he said.
The bold brushed portrait of Gibbs, which will be on display at the Baltimore Museum prior to its permanent installation in Washington from December 22 to January 9, embodies the congressman’s kingly gaze and arresting gaze. Emerging from an aura of golden-brown light, Cummings wields the judge’s mallet and almost looks like he’s about to leap off the canvas.
Bedford said he was impressed by Gibbs’ deeply felt painting method and “his ability to give his objects a recognizable inner life.” “It’s a difficult thing to teach a portrait painter—what makes people like Rembrandt, Titian, and Velazquez so successful.”
Gibbs was chosen to portray Cummings for the US Capitol. Michelle Obama painting by the National Portrait Gallery, who chose in 2017 Amy Sherald, another little-known, Baltimore-based painter for high-profile commission.
“For a young painter, such a commission could be really important,” said Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, a professor of art history at the University of Pennsylvania. “It certainly did for Amy, whose life is completely different now.” The First Lady’s painting threw Sherald into the center of the art world; now represented by the powerful gallery of Hauser & Wirth.
When Gibbs learned he was one of three finalists earlier this year, Monica Ikegwu and Ernest ShawChosen from more than 30 candidates under consideration for the Cummings commission, he explained that he felt completely overwhelmed. “The hardest thing for me was remembering what brought me to the chosen position, which is how I paint as I paint,” he said.
Nine-member, Baltimore-based selection committee, including art historian Lori N. Johnson, artist and curator Jeffrey Kent and arts advocate and barber shop owner Troy Stationmade studio visits with each of the three finalists (for Gibbs, this took place in his garage). Rockeymoore Cummings remembers that he stood out.
“Jerrell was naturally curious about Elijah and spoke knowledgeablely about the things he’s done in life,” she said. The committee was impressed by all three artists and invited each to submit a drawing showing what their portraits might look like.
After making many drawings that Gibbs was not pleased with, he presented a real painting to the committee, using a photograph of himself. Justin T. Gellerson On the cover of Cummings’ book, “We Are Better Than This” as a model.
“Jerrell captured Elijah’s expressiveness, gloom, and majesty in just a few strokes,” said Rockeymoore Cummings. The group’s decision was made almost instantly.
While the Cummings figure in the painted work is similar to the final result, Gibbs’ preliminary concept shows the congressman standing in front of a desk with a roaring lion statue flanked by the US and Maryland State flags and included by the artist. Symbol of Cummings’ presence in the courtroom. However, over the months he worked on the actual portrait, the artist described how he had been swept out of the way by these foreign objects, throwing away or covering up a series of failures.
Simplifying the background and cropping Cummings’ figure, Gibbs said, “I realized that what I wanted to capture was his voice, his presence, his temperament, his strength, and everything else that took away from him.” “I thought of Rembrandt and the atmosphere he created using light and texture for the figures. When I realized that, I was really excited.”
Rockeymoore Cummings was initially unsure. “Jerrell, what happened to my stuff?” said. he said, laughing. “Every portrait of the President in the Capitol has a flag behind it, and Elijah doesn’t.”
He asked Gibbs to rethink, but Gibbs stuck with his vision. Rockeymoore Cummings now embraces how her husband stands alone in the portrait. “The last years of his life focused on fighting to protect and defend our democracy,” he said. He interprets the aura behind him as “an open question mark on what he will choose for our country’s future”.
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