Racist Bloomberg Businessweek Cover Was Illustrated by Peruvian Artist

Feb 28, 2013
9:43 PM

Ok, by now everyone online knows about the controversy surrounding the Bloomberg Businessweek magazine cover that brought us all back to a time in America where racist caricatures were all the rage.

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And by now, you all know that Bloomberg issues the standard and lame public relations apology, when editor Josh Tyrangiel said this in a statement:

“Our cover illustration last week got strong reactions, which we regret. Our intention was not to incite or offend. If we had to do it over again we’d do it differently.”

You also should know by now that basically almost everyone in media is slamming Bloomberg Business for printing the cover in the first place. But did you know that the artist who was commissioned to produce the cover was from Perú? That is what Fox News Latino reported today, confirming that Andrés Guzmán was the artist. His Tumblr page shows the cover with the following comment below it: “Did a cover for Businessweek about the current housing market boom. I was asked to make an excited family with large quantities of money. I slipped in my lovely cat, Boo which was my favorite part. Too bad I wasn’t asked to draw large quantities of cats. Drawing dollars was a drag.”

Here is what the top of Guzmán’s Tumblr page looks. The Bloomberg cover is on the left.

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The original Tumblr post has over 43 likes. It was posted yesterday. Most of the likes are marked as favorites, although some commenters made note of the controversy. One person posted: “Bloomberg Businessweek is catching heat for publishing…advocates see as stereotypical,…” while another posted this “Sigh….seriously, Businessweek? Nobody saw this as…problem? I’m sorry, let me re-phrase…

According to Guzmán’s Tumblr, it says that he was born in 1986 in Lima, Peru and that he now lives in Minneapolis. He confirms that all the work on his Tumblr site is his. We did send a email to Guzmán to see if he would want to address the latest news about his piece, and we have yet to hear from him as of this posting. If he does respond to us, we will share.