Artist

A Mass of Christian burial for John J. McCormick, who retired 31 years ago as chief artist at Baltimore's News Post and American, will be offered at 10 a.m. today at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church, 5500 York Road in Govans.Mr. McCormick, who was 97, died Saturday of cancer at his home on East Lake Avenue.His retirement in 1959 ended more than three decades on the paper. His work included courtroom sketches during trials and supervision of the work of other artists and photographers. He also had a career painting portraits and landscapes.

William John Giacofci, a Queen Anne's County lawyer and artist, died of a heart attack Thursday at his Centreville home. He was 64. Mr. Giacofci was born in Washington and raised in Silver Spring. He was a 1960 graduate of Gonzaga High School and earned a bachelor's degree in foreign languages from Boston College in 1963. After earning his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1966, he served in the Peace Corps for three years as a legal adviser to Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, according to his family.

The red, white and blue "Hope" posters bearing the image of Barack Obama brought worldwide fame to the Los Angeles street artist who created them and arguably helped their subject win the White House. But Shepard Fairey, a guerrilla artist willing to go to jail for his distinctive graffiti, hasn't gone entirely mainstream. Fairey was arrested Friday night in Boston on his way to the Institute of Contemporary Art for a kickoff event for his first solo exhibition, Supply and Demand. Two warrants had been issued for Fairey on Jan. 24 after police determined he had tagged property in two locations with his street art campaign featuring Andre the Giant and the word "Obey," said Boston police officer James Kenneally.

The poet Langston Hughes once called for a body of African American children's literature "whose dark characters are not clowns and whose illustrations are not only caricatures."Authors heard his cry, as did a remarkable quartet of artists whose illustrations of children's books are on display at the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis."Pass It On: The Art of African American Children's Literature" is truly a unique exhibit that explores not only the richness of American art and literature, but also the essence of illustration itself and, indeed, the symbiotic aesthetic connection between image and word.

Given China's huge population, it is not exactly a surprise to learn that it is a country of great ethnic diversity.But it is a jolt to see that diversity expressed in a marvelous exhibition "Minorities of China" at Maryland Federation of Art Gallery on State Circle in Annapolis.All 32 canvases were painted by Hai-Ou, a graduate of the Central Institute of Fine Art and Design in Beijing and former professor at the Hubei Fine Arts Institute of Wuhan, in eastern China.Hai-Ou, 40, is among the first generation of Chinese artists trained in the post-Mao era. Her paintings and ceramics won renown in her native country, where she became affiliated with the Black Friday movement, a group of artists notable for willingness to experiment.

Leon Fleisher, the eminent Baltimore-based pianist, is one of five artists who will receive the 2007 Kennedy Center Honors in December. The typically wide-ranging list also includes comic actor and writer Steve Martin, singer Diana Ross, film director Martin Scorsese and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson. This is the 30th presentation of the Kennedy Center Honors. The recipients will be saluted in a gala attended by President Bush and the first lady, and held at the center's opera house Dec. 2. The show will be taped for nationwide broadcast Dec. 26 on CBS. "I'm very moved by this award," Fleisher said yesterday from his Roland Park home.

Dawn Dedeaux's "Soul Shadows: Urban Warrior Myths," the latest project of the Museum for Contemporary Arts, grows out of her work with inmates of the Orleans Parish Prison. As a record of an artist's demonstrated ability to reach lives torn by urban violence, this installation can only inspire admiration.And one can hope that some of those who see it here will be moved to emulate Dedeaux's example. In fact, her New Orleans program has already led to a similar project that last fall put artists in Baltimore's Woodbourne Center for severely troubled children, with remarkably successful results.

SIMMIE L. KNOX has been first lots of times. He was the first black to paint an official portrait of a Supreme Court justice -- Thurgood Marshall. His portrait of Mary McCleod Bethune was the first by a black artist to hang in the South Carolina capitol.And yesterday, Knox was first again, unveiling his portrait of the late Maryland Sen. Verda Welcome. It becomes the first painting by a black artist in the official state collection.Welcome, of course, was also a trailblazer -- the first black female state senator in the United States.

NEW YORK - Here are a few snapshots of contemporary culture: The Marshall Field's catalog features a silk dressing gown with the Superman logo for $59.95. Nearly 19 million grown-up Americans are regular viewers of SpongeBob Squarepants. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter saga has proved to be a literary sales phenomenon - among adults. And through today, the plaza at Rockefeller Center is surmounted by a 30-foot cartoon creature with a tapering head and an oversupply of limbs. His name is Tongari-kun, or Mr. Pointy, and he is the brainchild of Takashi Murakami, the hyper-hip Japanese artist who has become an international celebrity.

As soon as Lauri and Jeff Zell saw Steven Shapiro's treasure chest at a silent auction for charity, they knew it belonged in their home. Crafted as a fantasy art piece, the trunk had a sophisticated funkiness and a unique style the Zells loved. They had no doubt about their choice. It would fit perfectly in their family room.Describing her taste in decorating as "eclectic," Mrs. Zell adds that she and her husband "always keep our eyes open for things that we think will punch up the design of our home."