Note on Art

Note on Art

A personal note from LeRoy Neiman detailing plates for his memoir, All Told.

This note from LeRoy Neiman was made in preparation for his memoir, All Told. Although the document's content ranges from Playboy magazine to Dizzy Gillespie and US presidents, the bullet points are most likely suggestions of book plates for chapters on his early adulthood in Chicago. The lines stricken through are then most likely photographs found. At the bottom of the page is an obscure comment: “Janet says LeRoy talking head too much[,] like some voice over images. I don’t feel so. Well talk.” The implication of “talking head” is unclear. The phrase “lik[ing] voice over images” is also unclear. And, the identity of “we” is ambiguous. LeRoy also seems to refer to himself in the third person in this passage. Given the context, the comment was most likely related to the book's editing process, but the confusions of subject, dialogue, and direct objects complicate the reading. 
On this document’s reverse is an illustration Neiman made of former president Richard Nixon blowing hot air. The drawing feels somewhat out of place, anachronistic, given the fact that Neiman was in Chicago in the 1950s and the note itself was written between 1990-2011. The president’s term lasted from 1969 to 1974.

LeRoy Neiman

LeRoy Neiman Foundation

LeRoy Neiman Foundation

c. 1990-2011

LeRoy Neiman

Property of the LeRoy Neiman Foundation; please consult the organization's archivist for further details.

Notes

Image/jpeg

English

Document

LN_Notes_2216_01; LN_Notes_2216_02

New York (N.Y.) New York

(3) […]
Cut Playboy out every where […]
Do we have Miles Drawing?
Last conti drawing out
(no pissed off second time angered better or - nonplused)
Do not mention Pres. name second time
second time
Playboy story both pages OK. (OK)
(showcase?)
Janet says LeRoy talking head too much
like some voice over images. I do not
feel so. We’ll talk. /

[…]
and still life line drawing
story about LOUIS in Indy
a little satch
[…]
NIXON

Permanent marker with pencil on paper.