The Baltimore-born muralist Brandon Hill’s vividly colored depiction of a Black cowboy will remain on view at Florida’s Disney World for the next year — a tribute to forgotten American pioneers.

“I began working on this series in 2022 about all the unrecognized people in history,” the 41-year-old Hill said over the phone.

He came up with the idea during a long car trip to New Mexico with his wife. While she drove, the artist thumbed through a book about cowboys.

“I had no idea before then that between a quarter and a third of the working cowboys in this country were Black,” Hill said. “But that isn’t what most people think of when we think about cowboys. We think of Clint Eastwood.”

Hill received a commission last fall to paint a roughly 15-foot by 10-foot mural for the Disney Springs Art Walk as part of the theme park’s “Celebrate Soulfully” programming.

He spent a week painting the mural in Orlando and signed it on Valentine’s Day. Hill said he took the opportunity to educate visitors who paused to watch him work about this little-known chapter of American history.

“You’re in a public space so all the imaginary barriers between the artist and his audience don’t exist,” he said. “I was right in the walking path, and I’m a friendly guy.”

The cowboy in Hill’s mural is faceless, but is depicted in the joyous, deeply saturated hues that Hill observed in the Texas landscape.

“If you really look at the sky in western Texas, it’s deep blue, pink and yellow,” he said, “all these crazy, crazy colors.”

Hill graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park with a degree in art and design and lives and works now in Washington. But he grew up in Baltimore’s Reservoir Hill neighborhood and said he will always think of himself as a Charm City native.

“You can find Old Bay in my veins at any given time of the day,” he said.

Hill said he hopes to some day create more murals in his hometown for the people he grew up with to enjoy. He said that the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History & Culture owns one of his paintings of a hip-hop artist. But like all museum collections, individual artworks go on and off view.

In the meantime, locals wishing to see more of Hill’s work can stop by the Culture House gallery in Washington; the artist said that his solo show will open in mid-March in the non-profit arts center.

Have a news tip? Contact Mary Carole McCauley at mmccauley@baltsun.com and 410-332-6704.