Emerson Boozer 1967

LeRoy Neiman made this painting of Emerson Boozer, a football player, with oil paint. Just look at the brushstrokes here, how the blue background almost dissolves into green. It gives the whole image this electric, vibrating feel. You know, looking at this, I imagine Neiman throwing paint at the canvas. The pure physicality of it! What does it mean to try and catch someone with the brush, someone in motion? I can imagine him pacing around his subject, darting forward to capture just the right angle of light on the helmet. Look at the mouth, painted so wide and expressive. There is something really energetic there, some real emotion captured by the brush strokes. Neiman did a lot of paintings of athletes and sporting events, and you can see how all these paintings talk to one another, this one and other painters' works. It’s a conversation across time. It's all just a way of seeing and feeling that comes through in the paint, right?