How did this come about?įulton Leroy Washington: You know, I think the added dimension is special. His likeness is so vivid, but then there’s the reality of the glass, which becomes an additional layer between the viewer and the subject. Oliver Munday: There’s something visceral about the way you presented your painting for the cover-we’re seeing C. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. I recently spoke with Washington over Zoom about his life and art. Two years later, life imitated art, and Washington was freed. The painting, which depicts Obama signing Washington’s clemency papers, reimagines Francis Bicknell Carpenter’s First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by President Lincoln. He continued to elaborate on this motif and others over the course of his incarceration, eventually painting a prophetic work titled Emancipation Proclamation-which he believes inspired Obama to free him. He soon developed his signature style: photorealistic subjects crying large tears, with smaller portraits of figures from his subjects’ lives inside the teardrops. Washington recognized much of his own story in Rice’s-he spent 21 years in prison for nonviolent drug convictions before having his sentence commuted in 2016 by President Barack Obama.Īfter receiving a life sentence without parole, in 1997, Washington began experimenting with oil paints in prison. In practice, Rice’s experience is a common one.įor the cover, we commissioned the artist Fulton Leroy Washington, known as MR WASH, to paint a portrait of Rice. Rice’s story reveals the empty promise of the Sixth Amendment, which theoretically guarantees the right to counsel.
#QUICKDRAW MCGRAW TRIAL#
Rice’s court-appointed lawyer made a series of missteps before and during his trial that, Tapper shows, severely hampered his defense. Rice, who, as a teenager, was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to decades in prison. In The Atlantic’s November-issue cover story, “ This Is Not Justice,” Jake Tapper writes about C.
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