What it’s like to paint the cover of TIME

This week’scover storypaints a stark portrait of President Joseph Biden’s re-election campaign. Writers Charlotte Alter, Brian Bennett, and Philip Elliott take readers from the White House to Air Force One to the campaign trail with a president whose approval rating, at this point in his presidency, is below that of all four presidents who preceded him.

To depict the stall that the Biden campaign appears to be in, TIME Creative Director D.W. Pine commissioned a portrait from longtime collaboratorTim O’Brien. In the past 30 years, Tim has illustrated more TIME covers than any other artist. (Admittedly, Tim does have a little ways to go to catch up toartists like Boris Artzybasheff, Ernest Hamlin Baker, and Boris Chaliapin, who, together, made more than 300 cover portraits for TIME from the 1940s to 1960s) This is the fourth cover that Tim has painted of Biden since his election in 2020. In this one, Biden is seen on his bike, which he often rides in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he has a vacation home.

Illustrations by Tim O'Brien for TIME

Tim, who is based in Brooklyn, has painted cover subjects ranging from the Catholic Church to Osama Bin Laden. He is perhaps best known to TIME readers as the creator of a series of covers depicting theincreasingly risky watersthat President Donald Trump navigated during his time in the Oval Office.

In 2017,\xa0we filmed Tim at work as he created one of those Trump covers. “The role that artists have, we reflect the time, we don’t drive the news. We reflect what is going on, and we try to think of visual analogies that help people understand,” he said.

Tim is working in a tradition of some of the world’s best artists who have created covers for TIME, including Marc Chagall, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol. In more recent years, that group includes Jordan Casteel, JR, Titus Kaphar, Mickalene Thomas, Ai Weiwei, among many, many more. (Last year for TIME’s centennial,D.W. wrote more about the history of the great artists and photographers who have worked with TIME.)

Do you have a favorite cover from Tim or another artist? Let me know.\xa0Sam@time.com.