JERRY PINKNEY (1939-2021)
Ernest "Ernie" Davis. Watercolor and gouache on Bainbridge Board, circa 1970. 445x400 mm; 17½x15¾ inches. Signed "J. Pinkney" in lower left image. Hinged to matte.Provenance: The Anthony and Davida Artis Collection of African-American Fine Art (Flint, MI). A fine portrait by Pinkney of Ernie Davis, the first African-American to win the Heisman trophy, in 1961. Jerry Pinkney, who died last year, leaving a tremendous and important body of work, won numerous awards including the Caldecott Medal for 2010, for which he was the first African-American artist to hold that honor. He was also the first illustrator to be honored with a full-scale retrospective of his work at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition to that, he served on the United States Postal Service Citizens Stamp Advisory Committee for a decade, from 1982 to 1992, and in 2003 was appointed to the National Council on the Arts/NEA, where he became an influential advocate for arts funding.Davis played college football for Syracuse University when they won the 1960 National Championship. He was the first pick in the 1962 NFL Draft, where he was selected by the Cleveland Browns, but was diagnosed with leukemia that same year. Davis died shortly thereafter, at the age of 23, without ever playing in a professional game. He was posthumously inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979.