School of Visual Arts fine art faculty member Peter Hristoff was tapped to create the institution’s spring 2022 poster image—the silhouette of a man holding a bouquet of tulips like a megaphone or horn. As New York City (and most of the nation) slowly emerges from the darkness, Hristoff’s optimistic message, which comes from one of his online drawing classes from last year, speaks to the healing potential of art.
I’m not a spiritual person, but any image that has the power to lift the shroud of pandemic despair is to be celebrated for its simplicity and eloquence.
“The silhouette is something I’ve worked with for years, and tulips are also a favorite subject of mine,” Hristoff says. “Tulip mania”—an irrational run-up and subsequent crash in tulip bulb prices in 17th-century Europe—“was like an early version of cryptocurrency speculation.”
