These Urban City Streets

Painted in October 2013, this work evokes a slice of Cleveland in all its grit and glory. Michelangelo Lovelace studied art at the Cleveland Institute of Art and with renowned local self-taught artist Reverend Albert Wagner (also represented in the AMAM collection), but primarily made his living as a nurse’s aide—never, however, giving up his artistic practice. As seen in this work, his paintings often present birds’-eye views of parts of the city, with storefronts, churches, billboards, and a multicultural array of pedestrians, integrating bright colors and sometimes-humorous text in vibrant depictions of the urban scene.