A portrait of the late Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings will go on display this month at the Baltimore Museum of Art before it’s permanently installed in the U. S. Capitol.
Cummings’ widow Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and museum officials announced Friday that the painting will be unveiled at the museum on Dec. 21 during a private dedication event that celebrates “the beloved Congressman’s life and enduring advocacy for social justice.”
The portrait, painted by Baltimore-based artist Jerrell Gibbs, will be on public view in the museum’s John Russell Pope building from Dec. 22 to Jan. 9, before it is permanently installed in the U.S. Capitol.
The work is oil on canvas and measures 36 inches by 48 inches, unframed. Its title is “I Only Have A Minute, 60 Seconds In It…”
“This experience has been a once in a lifetime opportunity and I will forever cherish this monumental moment” Gibbs said in a statement. “I hope I made Elijah proud.”
Cummings, who was born to two sharecroppers in a segregated Baltimore in 1951, graduated with honors from City College, Howard University, and the University of Maryland School of Law.
A gifted orator, he was the first Black legislator to be named speaker pro tem in the Maryland House of Delegates. He served in Maryland’s House of Delegates from 1983 to 1996
In the House of Representatives, where he represented parts of Baltimore City, Baltimore County, and Howard County, Cummings rose to become one of the most powerful and respected voices in Congress, a civil rights leader who fought for social justice, fairness, and a democracy that serves all Americans.
On April 25, 1996, he took his oath of office as a newly elected congressman and gave his first floor speech.
“My mission is one that comes out of a vision that was created long, long ago,” Cummings said in his speech, “It is a mission and a vision to empower people — to make people realize that the power is within them and that they too can do the things they want to do.”
For the next 23 years, Cummings lived his mission as a U.S. congressman for the people of Maryland’s 7th congressional district, until his death in October 2019.
In 2019, Cummings was appointed Chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee and leveraged the role to lead investigations into the administration of then-President Donald Trump. Following his death, he became the first Black legislator to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol.
The portrait was commissioned by Rockeymoore Cummings — founder of Global Policy Solutions, former Maryland State Democratic chairwoman, and the late congressman’s wife — in March 2021.
Gibbs was one of three finalists for the project, along with Baltimore-based artists Monica Ikegwu and Ernest Shaw.
The short list of three finalists emerged from a broader list of more than 30 artists developed with support from Asma Naeem, The Eddie C. and C. Sylvia Brown Chief Curator at the museum; Carlyn Thomas, the museum’s Curatorial Assistant for Contemporary Art; and other members of the museum’s curatorial and leadership team.
The finalists were chosen by a nine-member selection committee led by Rockeymoore Cummings.
The selection committee consisted of Rockeymoore Cummings; Bedford; Naeem; Jeffrey Kent; Lori N. Johnson; Lisa Harris Jones; Amy Frenkil Meadows; Troy Staton and Kwame C. Webb.
The committee conducted studio visits with each of the three finalists and reviewed preliminary sketches and portrait concepts before making their selection.
As part of the commission, Gibbs received a $75,000 financial award. In addition, the museum acquired one preparatory work by each artist on the short list, marking the first acquisitions by Ikegwu and Shaw to enter the museum’s collection.
Over the past seven months, Rockeymoore Cummings collaborated with Gibbs on the creation of the Congressman’s portrait. The painting is inspired by Baltimore-based photographer Justin T. Gellerson’s image of Cummings, an image that’s featured on the cover for Cummings’s biography, We’re Better than This: My Fight for the Future of Our Democracy.
According to the museum, Gibbs’ portrait of Cummings is “a continuation of his exploration of the layers between memory, time, presence and absence, and the varying handling of paint on canvas.”
Gibbs graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2020. His work has been exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art; The Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Columbus Museum of Art; The Reginald F. Lewis Museum; The Galleries at the Community College of Baltimore County and The Gallery at Howard University. His work is in the permanent collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art; Columbus Museum of Art; CC Foundation; X Museum and the Los Angeles Museum of Art.
“In life Elijah and I enjoyed supporting the diversity of artists and events hosted by the Baltimore Museum of Art,” Rockeymoore Cummings said, in a statement.
“It is providence that I was able to bring Elijah’s official portrait to life in partnership with the BMA’s transformational leader Christopher Bedford and his team of world-class experts, as well as community arts leaders and wonderfully supportive donors. We are exceedingly pleased with the result. Jerrell Gibbs is a masterfully expressive painter and his stunning portrait perfectly captures Elijah’s essence and majesty. It is a timeless masterpiece.”
“It is our great honor to have worked with Maya on the commission for the portrait of the iconic Elijah Cummings, and to share it now with our community,” said Bedford, the museum’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, in a statement.
“The Congressman’s life was guided by the belief that our diversity and our differences only strengthen us, as individuals and as a society. These are beliefs that the entirety of the BMA team and leadership hold and are ones that we try to bring to our own work every day. I am grateful to Maya for the opportunity to support this process, to everyone at the BMA that helped realize it and the accompanying events, and to Jerrell, who has brought his inspired vision to this portrait and whose work so beautifully captures the daily experiences and lives of our community.”
Given Cummings’ lifelong commitment to Baltimore, museum officials say, his widow believed it was essential that his portrait be created by an artist that represented the “rich cultural fabric of the city” and “the incredible creative contributions of Black artists.”
To establish the selection process, Rockeymoore Cummings approached leaders at the BMA, where she served on the Board of Trustees from 2017 to 2019. Naeem led the curatorial process in collaboration with Bedford, working with the selection committee and organizing the presentation of the portrait.
