Painting of a city skyline by Dawud Anyabwile: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

A color painting of the skyline of Big City, the fictional city in the comic book series Brotherman. The buildings are brightly colored red, blue, green and yellow. Many of the buildings are leaning at angles or curved with the angles and curves becoming more pronounced the farther away they are depicted. Several of the buildings have signs. A building at the center of the painting has statues on the top. The sky is dark blue with white clouds. Written at the bottom right corner is “© DAWUD / ANYABWILE.”

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 2009
• Created by: Dawud Anyabwile, American, born 1965
• Subject of: Big City Entertainment, Inc., American, founded 2007
• Type: paintings
• Medium: acrylic on canvas
• Dimensions: H x W x D (frame): 45 1/4 × 57 1/16 × 2 1/2 in. (115 × 145 × 6.4 cm)
• Place made: United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Art
• Topic: Comics and graphic novels
• Object number: 2017.116.5.3
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Brotherman Comics / Big City Entertainment, Inc.
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: © Big City Entertainment, Inc Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.