The Man Who Painted Sport

LeRoy Neiman was an American artist who blended a Pop Art sensibility with impressionistic brushwork and vibrant color.

“I do not depart from the colors borrowed from life,” he once said. “But I use color to emphasize the scent, the spirit, and the feeling of the thing I’ve experienced.” His prints and paintings of sporting events, leisure activities, and movie characters like Rocky were published in magazines such as Playboy.

Born LeRoy Runquist on June 8, 1921 in St. Paul, MN, after serving in the US military, the painter enrolled briefly at the St. Paul School of Art and then at the Art Institute of Chicago. During his life, Neiman sometimes performed on television, captivating audiences by drawing or painting portraits live on air. The prolific and popular artist made a substantial donation to Columbia University School of the Arts in 1995, which helped to create its LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies. Neiman died on June 20, 2012 in New York, NY at the age of 91.

Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Indianapolis Museum of Art,among others.