Artist Biographies

LEROY NEIMAN (1927 - )

Leroy Neiman is a sports artist, a chronicler of contemporary lifestyles and a creator of the action-subject. He is credited with reviving figure painting during the years of the abstract movement when the figure, and realism in general, were abandoned.

Neiman paints with a technique that often starts with his own Impressionistic style and continues with a process that looks very similar to the action paintings of the Abstract Expressionists. Accident and chance seem to play significant roles in determining the final appearance of his creations.

This is seen in Neiman's spontaneous application of paint and color. He paints quickly to grasp moments in time. Explains Neiman, "I don't really examine other people as to what they are all about. The way people look, the way they fix themselves ... I'm fascinated by the superficial."

His works are held in the collections of both the Baseball and Football Halls of Fame, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Portland Museum of Art, the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad and universities throughout the United States.

BIRTHPLACE: St. Paul, MN EDUCATION: Minnesota Museum of Art

St. Paul Gallery and School of Art

Art Institute of Chicago EXHIBITIONS: Hammer Galleries, New York, NY

Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, OK

Wichita Museum, Wichita, KS

Harrod's, London, England

Bowles/Sorokko Galleries, San Francisco, CA

The New State Tretyakov Museum, USSR

Touring Exhibition, Tokyo, Japan

Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH

Springfield Art Association, Springfield, IL

Copyright (c) 1997 Bruce McGaw Graphics. All rights reserved.