How We Got Here

This image, seemingly showing America’s path as a labyrinth, accompanied the Sunday Dialogue discussion, “Has America Lost Its Way?” published on September 15, 2012. The image is part of our collection of editorial illustrations being offered for the first time ever to the public as unframed or framed fine-art prints.

Illustrations have played an instrumental role in The Times’s journalistic legacy since December 11, 1861, when we published our first drawings – front page cartoons of James Gordon Bennett, rival publisher of The Herald. Today, The Times commissions thousands of original illustrations from freelance artists around the world. Artists, each with a distinct approach and personality, enhance stories with thought-provoking images that enrich the reading experience.

Tucker Nichols is an artist based in Northern California. His work has been featured at the Drawing Center in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Denver Art Museum, Den Frie Museum in Copenhagen and the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. A show of his sculpture, “Almost Everything on the Table,” was at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, Conn., in 2018. His drawings have been published in McSweeney’s, The Thing Quarterly, Nieves Books and the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times. He is co-author of the books “Crabtree” (with Jon Nichols) and “This Bridge Will Not Be Gray” (with Dave Eggers). He is represented by ZieherSmith in New York and Gallery 16 in San Francisco.