Between the Covers

Oil pastel on paper, signed “N.K. Gibbs, ‘88” at the bottom right. Measures about 19” x 23” and neatly mounted in a large frame measuring 30” x 36”. A fine portrait of Clarence “Du” Burns, who rose from being a high school locker room attendant to become Baltimore’s first black mayor in 1987. Burns founded the Eastside Democratic Organization in East Baltimore, and earned his nickname “Du” in the 1940s because he was always “doing things for people.” An impressive, large scale portrait by Nathaniel Kato Gibbs, one of Baltimore’s leading African-American artists best known for his commissioned portraits (which also include Martin Luther King, Jr., Thurgood Marshall, and Malcolm X), as well as his original images of African-American “Buffalo soldiers."

Item #448655