Acclaimed artist Kadir Nelson, known for his portraits of cultural heroes, was enlisted to design the billboard for Season 7. The “Black-ish Tea" portrait "depicts the stylishly dressed Johnson family on the street sipping tea out of china cups and eating macarons against a bright blue sky," according to Los Angeles Times' Robert Rorke. "Their bemused expressions invite you to wonder what they’re all thinking and talking about. For Nelson, a graduate of New York’s Pratt Institute, they’re having the national conversation — as in, 'What is happening to the world?'" “I looked at … what people were doing during COVID and I found a list that had the theme of a tea party," says Nelson. "And I thought that’s pretty much what the Johnson family would be doing. They would have something to say about this crazy, roller-coaster year we’ve been experiencing and pretty much have this knowing look. Like, ‘We know better about what’s going on, but we’re just going to sip our tea.’”
TOPICS: Black-ish, ABC, Kadir Nelson, Marketing