Time magazine turns to Custer High alum for cover art
For the cover of its new double issue “America Must Change,” Time magazine turned to artist Charly Palmer, a Custer High School graduate, for a portrait about the impact of racial injustice.
His painting, “In Her Eyes,” shows a girl in profile with images of fires, protests and police in her mind. “Little Black children today are afraid,” Palmer said in a statement about the image.
“As a man, I am concerned for my own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. I worry about the Black community as a whole,” Palmer told Time in a discussion about the painting.
The Time issue, with a cover date of July 6 / July 13, includes other Palmer paintings: “Remembering George,” a commemoration of George Stinney Jr., executed at age 14 on a conviction that was overturned 70 years later; “Eminent Domain,” which depicts the construction of the interstate highway system as a cancer destroying Black neighborhoods; and a portrait of novelist James Baldwin.
Born in Alabama, Palmer moved with his family to Milwaukee in 1964, at age 4. He began drawing early, often on typing paper his mom would bring home from her job at City Hall. After the family moved to a home in the Capitol Drive neighborhood, she let him paint a mural on the living room wall.
It was a scene of people walking to a water well in Africa, Palmer said in a telephone interview. “I think there was a hippopotamus in it.” He traces his ancestry back to Sierra Leone and Liberia.
“As a Black child of the mid-’60s, my parents did all they could to shield me from the horrors of racism, especially through the unconditional love and vigilant protection of my mother, Irma Walker,” Palmer told Time. Walker died in 2008. The floral imagery in his paintings since then pays homage to her.
Palmer, who lives in Atlanta, said Time’s creative director approached him because he knew Palmer’s work, including paintings in his Silent Series, which address the right of African Americans to speak, and was partly inspired by Colin Kaepernick’s protest.
That creative director wasn’t the only person to ask for Palmer by name. Singer John Legend commissioned Palmer to create a portrait for the cover of his album “Bigger Love,” released in June. After bonding in conversation about their mutual love of South Africa, Palmer worked South African flowers into the portrait.
Closer to his former home, the curating company Sports & The Arts commissioned Palmer to paint about 20 works for a huge collection of art that now lines the walls of the suites and club levels at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.
His subjects included former Packers running back John Brockington, a childhood favorite. To Palmer’s delight, Brockington’s wife arranged to get a photo of the former Packer in front of the painting.
“I felt like a kid all over again. John Brockington standing in front of my painting of him, smiling,” Palmer said.