Kadir Nelson illustrates a beautiful cover featuring images of Zora Neale Hurston, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and the Nicholas Brothers for the February 22nd issue of The New Yorker.

Nelson says that he set out to create “a stylistic montage as an homage to the great Harlem Renaissance painters: Aaron Douglas, William H. Johnson, Norman Lewis, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Archibald Motley, and Palmer Hayden.”