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
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