Ad Age’s At the Newsstand spotlights notable ad-supported print media.
The June 22 issue of The New Yorker, out today, features a cover painting by Kadir Nelson titled “Say Their Names” that conveys, in the magazine’s words, how “the murder of George Floyd embodies the history of violence inflicted upon Black people in America.”
An interactive, annotated version of the cover offers “a closer read of the lives and experiences referenced by Nelson, including those of Ahmaud Arbery, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Rodney King, Martin Luther King, Jr., Trayvon Martin, David McAtee, Rosa Parks, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Emmett Till, and the unnamed millions of Black people enslaved in America.”
Los Angeles-based Nelson, 46, frequently produces covers for The New Yorker. His work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, among other institutions. He painted the cover art for Drake’s album “Nothing Was the Same,” has produced more than a dozen commemorative postage stamps for the U.S. Postal Service, and was commissioned by DreamWorks to produce the conceptual artwork for Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad.”