Time 23Mar2020

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

A dazzling array of new portraits capture subject, perspective and era

to mark the role of the 100 women of the Year in

history, we embarked on something historic of our own:

creating a TIME cover to recognize each of them.

From charcoal portraits to a three-dimensional paper

sculpture, from photo collages to fine-art paintings, from

wooden sculptures to a quilted fabric image—the art we

commissioned reflects the breadth of the 100 choices. Re-

gardless of style, our aim was to find interesting pairings

of artist and subject.

The project selected a woman or group to represent

each year from 1920 to 2019, and our visual approach

follows the same arc by re-creating TIME’s cover design

as it evolved over the past century—from the illustrative

scroll of the 1920s to the iconic red border of today. Each

cover is visually emblematic of the period its subject

represents.

In all, we commissioned 49 original portraits. These

are some of the stories behind them.

New York–based fine artist Toyin Ojih Odutola

chose to portray Beyoncé Knowles-Carter in a Nigerian-

inspired dress shirt and a honey-colored bob from 2014.

“What I arrived at in my final drawing was a portrayal

of a woman completely comfortable in her space

while curious for what was to come in her future

endeavors,” says Odutola. “I hoped to express and

retain the joy and wonder in her, the magnitude

of her influence, and to illustrate how she did

then as she continues to do so now: by inspiring

us all to follow our creative inclinations yet

never lose sight of ourselves.”

Mickalene Thomas, a contempo-

rary Brooklyn artist best known for

her depictions of African -American

women, created a layered image of

LGBTQ-rights pioneer Marsha P.

Johnson. “Collaging allows me to

contemplate the processes around

building an identity, a sense of

self. This work first and foremost

celebrates her as a person that ra-

diated self-pride, vivacity, glamour

and fearlessness, but also recognizes

her legacy as a face of resistance.”

Shana Wilson’s large-scale painting

of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader

Ginsburg in 1996 was a labor of love.

“I elected to paint Ruth without robes,

‘just’ as a woman, to showcase all of her

achievements. She’s also a daughter,

wife, mother, grandmother, friend and

mentor,” says Wilson, who also painted

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy for our

1962 cover.

The vibrant image of Wangari Maathai

was created by American fiber artist Bisa Butler,

who used African Dutch-wax cottons, silk, and velvet

quilted and appliquéd for her portrait of the Green Belt

Movement founder and winner of the 2004 Nobel Peace

Prize. “I have admired her from afar for years,” says

Butler, who has an upcoming show at the Art Institute of

Chicago. “This whole experience brought me closer to her

legacy and closer to my own purpose.”

To make a new image of Diana, Princess of Wales—

who has graced TIME’s cover 11 times—we turned to

paper-sculpture artist Yulia Brodskaya.

Using just paper and glue, Brodskaya

created an incredibly complex portrait,

providing a new way of seeing one of

the most-photographed women of that

time. “My main vision for Princess

Diana’s portrait was simply to fill it with

light,” says the U.K.-based artist, who spent two weeks

producing the artwork.

For the year 1920, the Spanish-born graphite and char-

coal artist Amaya Gurpide rendered a cover illustration

of five women known as suffragists. Gurpide captured the

feel of TIME’s very first cover in 1923—a charcoal illus-

tration by artist William Oberhardt.

Jennifer Dionisio, a London-based illustra-

tor, created a portrait of pioneering physicist

Chien-Shiung Wu for 1945. Its style syncs with

what is considered the golden age of TIME’s illus-

trated cover, a period dominated by Boris Artzy-

basheff, Ernest Hamlin Baker and Boris Chaliapin.

Known as the ABCs, the three artists illus-

trated more than 900 TIME covers over

three decades.

The realistic and delicately ex-

pressive style of Spanish illustrator

Mercedes deBellard carries the

1976 cover of Indira Gandhi, the first

female Prime Minister of India.

To capture Rosa Parks, Claudette

Colvin, Mary Louise Smith and Aurelia

Browder, who initiated the Montgom-

ery bus boycott in 1955, we turned to

Philadelphia artist Lavett Ballard. Bal-

lard, whose work focuses on “themes

of history, colorism and Afro futurism,”

illustrated the campaign of peaceful re-

sistance on a painted collage applied to

reclaimed wood fences.

“The use of fences,” says Ballard, “is

a symbolic reference to how fences keep

people in and out, just as racial and gen-

der identities can do the same socially.”

—D.w. Pine,

TIME Creative DireCtor

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