Another sign that the Arts District along Route 1 has come of age: Wheatpaste art is now in Hyattsville.
A few weeks ago, the poster pictured above appeared on a junction box in front of the Verizon building at the corner of Jefferson Street and Baltimore Avenue.
A sort of vaguely steampunk portrait of a man with circular glasses, a high-collared jacket and a bowler hat, the poster was named the “Best Wheatpaste of 2011” by the Washington City Paper:
The impressive part is the distribution: The artist has deployed the image all around the city, on telephone booths and boarded-up windows, as well as via small stickers attached to free newspapers.
Reporter Lydia DePillis, who now writes for The New Republic, said the poster is a self-portrait by a man named Steven who is associated with Dandies and Quaintrelles, a D.C. social group that holds vintage events such as the Seersucker Social and the Tweed Ride.
A blog post on Tropics of Meta further identified him as Steven M. Cummings, an art photographer and 2010 graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore whose work has been featured at the Anacostia Community Museum.
