Description
This note, with its poetic verse and range of refererences detailing LeRoy Neiman's interest in sports art, audience, and variable brushstrokes, is most likely an intital draft of the artist's catalogue essay for his monograph Winners: My Thrity Years in Sports published in 1983. Athough it is not certain this was the original function of the document, the subject matter and title "Winning" suggest so. In addition, the note was typed, indicating the record's intended purpose was professional. (Neiman wrote most of his personal notes by hand.) An interpolative edit from Lynn Quayle, the artist's longtime assistant, further validates this claim.
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
[Page 7 / Winning / Artists Art / ]
in the beginning [To offer the artist more than he asks is to refuse him the only help he needs / Momentary gain]
LACONIC (RAPIDITY ENABLES ARTIST TO CATCH MOODS AND MOVEMENT – DEXTERITY REQUIRED[,] SWIFT BRUSH STROKES – Power of suggestion)
[Short lividness could well be the price one pays for the art of capturing the fleeting moment / paint top and bottom of society / The aorta of the art… the valentine… attend ot the oracle in one’s chest. / SEASONS / I paint the sport of the season much like the Japanese artist of yesterday would never paint a flower our of season or a Spring landscape in Autumn the fitness of things insensibly influences him. From anciet times certain principals have determined his choice of subjects, according to the period of the year like festivals, ceremonies, entertainments and other events]
weather, flowers of the season.
[ART ]
VIEWER
[One of the ways we judge the quality of an artists vision is the the degree to which our own vision is altered by his work. / Art is less important than life… but what would life be without art? / Art is the most profound and ultimately the most sacred form of freedom of expression we have. Within its’ depths and it’s mysteries is the source of new ways of looking at the world and ourselves.]
Original Format
Pencil and marker on typewritten text.
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