Michelangelo Lovelace, an artist whose poignant sketches of people he cared for as a nursing home aide and whose bold paintings of urban Black life gained increasing attention and critical praise late in his life, died on May 26 at his home in Cleveland. His sister Janine Lovelace said the cause was pancreatic cancer. Mr. Lovelace’s paintings, many of them distinctive citycapes, are acrylic-on-canvas reflections of his years growing up poor in Cleveland’s housing projects. He depicted joyful, everyday scenes — a carnival, a block party, a concert — but also raw representations of crime, poverty, racism and drug abuse. In “Wheel of Poverty” (1997), contestants spin a wheel that lands on “prizes” like bankruptcy, Chapters 7, 11 and 13, and a cut in welfare benefits.

Source: New York Times May 07, 2021 17:00 UTC