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Leroy Neiman


... the most distinctive sports artist of his time. 3 votes

... a notable sports artist. 9 votes

... an artist. 7 votes

... a hack. 1 votes

... the biggest of frauds. 0 votes

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 06:37 AM

Benjamin Grimm
Jun 21 2012 06:47 AM
Re: Leroy Nieman

I voted "an artist". He was talented, but his stuff never really did it for me.

Did he have any Hispanic heritage? To me, he always painted more like a "Carlos" than a "Leroy".






Who's the guy between Ralph and Leroy? I suppose it's some Schaefer Brewery stooge.

metirish
Jun 21 2012 06:48 AM
Re: Leroy Nieman

I voted "an artist"


the most distinctive sports artist of his time?..............did he do sports other than American ?

metirish
Jun 21 2012 06:49 AM
Re: Leroy Nieman

WOW, look at the crease on Ralph's pants.......

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 06:52 AM
Re: Leroy Nieman

Benjamin Grimm wrote:
Who's the guy between Ralph and Leroy? I suppose it's some Schaefer Brewery stooge.


We've GOT to get that guy to present this year's award to R.A. Dickey. I will be horribly disappointed if we don't get that guy.

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 06:55 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

He did a painting of Jesse Orosco after Jesse's great 1983 season, but I can't find it. I may be conflating it with another incident, but I think he did it from a backwards print, and poor JO got presented with a painting of himself as a righthander.

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 07:29 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Neiman's drawing of young Joe Petruccio.

John Cougar Lunchbucket
Jun 21 2012 07:43 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

He definitely found a unique way of using color to represent action, or something like that, what am I an art critic? I like it enough.

MFS62
Jun 21 2012 07:45 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

I voted a notable sports artist.
Any of those who we remember were distinctive for their own styles. For the famous ones, you could tell who painted (or drew) it. I consider sports cartoonists like Bill Gallo as artists, too. I felt none was any more distinctive than the others.

Later

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 08:00 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote:
He definitely found a unique way of using color to represent action, or something like that, what am I an art critic? I like it enough.


Yes, you're an art critic. Guy dies --- for one day, you can be an art critic.

I think it's worth noting that he certainly has a meaningful place in the Mets' story. During the cultural nadir of the Torre era, he did a buncha paintings of our Schaefer winners and stuff, appeared at the ballpark, smoked those dumb cigars and sported that dumb mustache --- brought us a sort of crusty class, the only sort of class we could aspire to, maybe. A cross between Salvador Dali and Oscar Madison.

seawolf17
Jun 21 2012 08:17 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

I went with "notable," because yes, he's distinctive.

For me, the most memorable guy is Dick Perez, the guy who did/does the Donruss Diamond King cards.

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 08:24 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

I like the candy-flavored radio waves transmitting from HoJo's head.

batmagadanleadoff
Jun 21 2012 08:59 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 09:15 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

batmagadanleadoff
Jun 21 2012 09:19 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr
Jun 21 2012 09:22 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jun 21 2012 09:34 AM

And hey-- he was the guy from the Rockys, too.

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 09:28 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Rusty seemed out of proportion. I couldn't quite say why, and then I realized he was wearing the 10 from his second met tenure, but he's lean. Leaner perhaps than he was during his first Mets tenure.

Look at them beautiful legs. That ain't Rusty. That's Connie Sellecca.

Benjamin Grimm
Jun 21 2012 09:40 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

He also seems to be wearing a Yankees helmet.

The more I look at these paintings in this thread, the less I like Leroy Nieman's work.

batmagadanleadoff
Jun 21 2012 09:43 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Benjamin Grimm wrote:

The more I look at these paintings in this thread, the less I like Leroy Nieman's work.


I bet you'll hate this one five ways over.

Edgy MD
Jun 21 2012 09:54 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Why is Matlack on the Reds? And why's he throwing a screwball?

Yeah, I appreciate what he brought to the game, but sometimes, certainly after he reached the top of his field, he was mailing it in.

Mr. Seaver, you've got mail.

Ashie62
Jun 21 2012 07:55 PM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Niemann is fun...so is Andy

Frayed Knot
Jun 22 2012 06:16 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Did he have any Hispanic heritage? To me, he always painted more like a "Carlos" than a "Leroy".


Born LeRoy Joseph Runquist in St Paul, Minnesota. Neiman was his step-father's name.
Both the birth name and the location imply Scandinavian - of course neither says anything about his mother's side.

metsguyinmichigan
Jun 22 2012 03:23 PM
Re: Leroy Neiman

I would certainly say he was distinctive. You can tell one of his paintings from a mile away, and any one who did something similar would be accused of copying him.

That said, he appeared to do the same kind of thing over and over. I don't recall seeing anything from him is a different style.

Dick Perez sure could be hit-and-miss on those old Diamond Kings.

Edgy MD
Jun 22 2012 05:30 PM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Well, some were more representational than others, some more abstract. Some of his subjectd could be a raging golemd of concrete standing in defiance in a sea of flame. Others were wisping spirits of the flame itself.

And when he got out of the sports realm, he wandered further from his signature style.

Zvon
Jun 22 2012 06:10 PM
Re: Leroy Neiman

This ones easy. IMO the most distinctive sports artist of his time. And its all about his use of color.

Mets – Willets Point
Jun 22 2012 06:15 PM
Re: Leroy Neiman

I always conflate him with Leonard Nemoy.

themetfairy
Jun 22 2012 07:18 PM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Zvon wrote:
This ones easy. IMO the most distinctive sports artist of his time. And its all about his use of color.


Agreed, Whether you like him or not, he was definitely distinctive.

Benjamin Grimm
Jun 23 2012 04:51 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Yeah, sure, distinctive. But that could be good or bad.

Yoko Ono's singing was pretty distinctive too.

themetfairy
Jun 23 2012 05:57 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman

But that's a separate issue.

Perhaps the top choice in this poll could have been worded differently. None of this matters unless you're tabulating the poll and relying on the top choice signifying the greatest option. I wouldn't argue that Neiman was the greatest artist of his generation, but I can't think of a sports artist in this era whose work is more distinctive than his.

Edgy MD
Jun 23 2012 12:21 PM
Re: Leroy Neiman

Sorry, yeah.

Leroy Neiman was...

... a great sports artist.
... a good sports artist.
... a sports artist.
... a poor sports artist.
... an awful sports artist.

batmagadanleadoff
Jun 24 2012 07:49 AM
Re: Leroy Neiman



LeRoy Neiman Dies at 91; Artist of Bold Life and Bright Canvases
By WILLIAM GRIMES
Published: June 20, 2012

LeRoy Neiman, whose brilliantly colored, impressionistic sketches of sporting events and the international high life made him one of the most popular artists in the United States, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 91.


“Frank at Rao’s,” a LeRoy Neiman painting from 2002.

Mr. Neiman’s kinetic, quickly executed paintings and drawings, many of them published in Playboy, offered his fans gaudily colored visual reports on heavyweight boxing matches, Super Bowl games and Olympic contests, as well as social panoramas like the horse races at Deauville, France, and the Cannes Film Festival.

Quite consciously, he cast himself in the mold of French Impressionists like Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Degas, chroniclers of public life who found rich social material at racetracks, dance halls and cafes.

Mr. Neiman often painted or sketched on live television. With the camera recording his progress at the sketchpad or easel, he interpreted the drama of Olympic Games and Super Bowls for an audience of millions.

When Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky faced off in Reykjavik, Iceland, to decide the world chess championship, Mr. Neiman was there, sketching. He was on hand to capture Federico Fellini directing “8 ½” and the Kirov Ballet performing in the Soviet Union.

In popularity, Mr. Neiman rivaled American favorites like Norman Rockwell, Grandma Moses and Andrew Wyeth. A prolific one-man industry, he generated hundreds of paintings, drawings, watercolors, limited-edition serigraph prints and coffee-table books yearly, earning gross annual revenue in the tens of millions of dollars.

Although he exhibited constantly and his work was included in the collections of dozens of museums around the world, critical respect eluded him. Mainstream art critics either ignored him completely or, if forced to consider his work, dismissed it with contempt as garish and superficial — magazine illustration with pretensions. Mr. Neiman professed not to care.

“Maybe the critics are right,” he told American Artist magazine in 1995. “But what am I supposed to do about it — stop painting, change my work completely? I go back into the studio, and there I am at the easel again. I enjoy what I’m doing and feel good working. Other thoughts are just crowded out.”

His image suggested an artist well beyond the reach of criticism. A dandy and bon vivant, he cut an arresting figure with his luxuriant ear-to-ear mustache, white suits, flashy hats and Cuban cigars. “He quite intentionally invented himself as a flamboyant artist not unlike Salvador Dalí, in much the same way that I became Mr. Playboy in the late ’50s,” Hugh Hefner told Cigar Aficionado magazine in 1995.

LeRoy Runquist was born on June 8, 1921, in St. Paul. His father, a railroad worker, deserted the family when LeRoy was quite young, and the boy took the surname of his stepfather.

He showed a flair for art at an early age. While attending a local Roman Catholic school, he impressed schoolmates by drawing ink tattoos on their arms during recess.

As a teenager, he earned money doing illustrations for local grocery stores. “I’d sketch a turkey, a cow, a fish, with the prices,” he told Cigar Aficionado. “And then I had the good sense to draw the guy who owned the store. This gave me tremendous power as a kid.”

After being drafted into the Army in 1942, he served as a cook in the European theater but in his spare time painted risqué murals on the walls of kitchens and mess halls. The Army’s Special Services Division, recognizing his talent, put him to work painting stage sets for Red Cross shows when he was stationed in Germany after the war.

On leaving the military, he studied briefly at the St. Paul School of Art (now the Minnesota Museum of American Art) before enrolling in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where, after four years of study, he taught figure drawing and fashion illustration throughout the 1950s.

When the janitor of the apartment building next door to his threw out half-empty cans of enamel house paint, Mr. Neiman found his métier. Experimenting with the new medium, he embraced a rapid style of applying paint to canvas imposed by the free-flowing quality of the house paint.

While doing freelance fashion illustration for the Carson Pirie Scott department store in Chicago in the early 1950s, he became friendly with Mr. Hefner, a copywriter there who was on the verge of publishing the first issue of a men’s magazine.

In 1954, after five issues of Playboy had appeared, Mr. Neiman ran into Mr. Hefner and invited him to his apartment to see his paintings of boxers, strip clubs and restaurants. Mr. Hefner, impressed, showed the work to Playboy’s art director, Art Paul, who commissioned an illustration for “Black Country,” a story by Charles Beaumont about a jazz musician.

Thus began a relationship that endured for more than half a century and established Mr. Neiman’s reputation.

In 1955, when Mr. Hefner decided that the party-jokes page needed visual interest, Mr. Neiman came up with the Femlin, a curvaceous brunette who cavorted across the page in thigh-high stockings, high-heeled shoes, opera gloves and nothing else. She appeared in every issue of the magazine thereafter.

Three years later, Mr. Neiman devised a running feature, “Man at His Leisure.” For the next 15 years, he went on assignment to glamour spots around the world, sending back visual reports on subjects as varied as the races at Royal Ascot, the dining room of the Tour d’Argent in Paris, the nude beaches of the Dalmatian coast, the running of the bulls at Pamplona and Carnaby Street in swinging London. He later produced more than 100 paintings and 2 murals for 18 of the Playboy clubs that opened around the world.

“Playboy made the good life a reality for me and made it the subject matter of my paintings — not affluence and luxury as such, but joie de vivre itself,” Mr. Neiman told V.I.P. magazine in 1962.

Working in the same copywriting department at Carson Pirie Scott as Mr. Hefner was Janet Byrne, a student at the Art Institute. She and Mr. Neiman married in 1957. She survives him.

A prolific artist, he generated dozens of paintings each year that routinely commanded five-figure prices. When Christie’s auctioned off the Playboy archives in 2003, his 1969 painting “Man at His Leisure: Le Mans” sold for $107,550. Sales of the signed, limited-edition print versions of his paintings, published in editions of 250 to 500, became a lucrative business in itself after Knoedler Publishing, a wholesale operation, was created in 1975 to publish and distribute his serigraphs, etchings, books and posters.

Mr. Neiman’s most famous images came from the world of sports. His long association with the Olympics began with the Winter Games in Squaw Valley in 1960, and he went on to cover the games, on live television, in Munich in 1972, Montreal in 1976, Lake Placid in 1980, and Sarajevo and Los Angeles in 1984, using watercolor, ink or felt-tip marker to produce images with the dispatch of a courtroom sketch artist. At the 1978 and 1979 Super Bowls, he used a computerized electronic pen to portray the action for CBS.

Although he was best known for scenes filled with people and incident, he also painted many portraits. Athletes predominated, with Muhammad Ali and Joe Namath among his more famous subjects, but he also painted Leonard Bernstein, the ballet dancer Suzanne Farrell, the poet Marianne Moore and Sylvester Stallone, who gave Mr. Neiman cameo roles in three “Rocky” films.

His many books included “LeRoy Neiman: Art and Life Style,” “Horses,” “Winners: My Thirty Years in Sports,” “Big-Time Golf,” “LeRoy Neiman on Safari” and “LeRoy Neiman: Five Decades.” In 1995, he donated $6 million to Columbia University’s School of the Arts to endow the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies.

His memoir, “All Told: My Art and Life Among Athletes, Playboys, Bunnies and Provocateurs,” was published this month.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/arts/ ... at-91.html




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