LEROY NEIMAN - PRINTED ART SIGNED IN INK - HFSID 157123

LeROY NEIMAN
Printed Image signed: "leRoy Neiman". Color, 7½x10½. A page from a "Playboy" magazine, depicting the powerful Cuban boxer Teofilo Stevenson.. Captioned at upper margin: "Cuba gas always produced great fighters among the little men: The immortal featherweight from Havana, Kid Chocolate, is a national treasure, and fight lovers will never forget Kid Gavilan's famous bolo punch. Cuban boxers take pride in their style and cunning. The objective is not only to knock an opponent out but to knock him out with class. Today the Grand Master of Cuban boxing is 6'5" reigning Olympic heavyweight champion Teofilo Stevenson. Jamaican born, soft spoken, polite, dignified (though somewhat condescending when giving interviews), Stevenson is an impressive figure. On his own turf, Stevenson's reputation as a ladies' man is legend. In the ring, the straight-up puncher addresses his opponents with disdain. And not without reason. I first sketched him destroying Duane Bodick at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972, then again at the Montreal Olympics in 1976, when he made short work of John Tate, today a ranking pro. In the 1979 Pan-American Games, Stevenson impatiently flattened both of his opponents in less than a round each. Among boxers, he's in a class by himself. - L.N." Neiman, who had contributed his first work to "Playboy" in 1954, had his drawings and commentary featured in his "Sketchbook" series in the magazine from December 1979-February 1983. Illustrator and printmaker LeRoy Neiman (1921-2012) is internationally known for his brilliantly colored, energetic illustrations of sporting events, leisure activities and celebrities, but he also produced works on historical figures and famous locations. Neiman featured Paris and its sights in a number of works. The Eiffel Tower, for example, was later featured in a serigraph in 1994, the year the artist published An American in Paris, a collection of illustrations from his visit to the city in 1991-1992. Light show through of print on verso. Fine condition. Framed in the Gallery of History style: 23¾x26½.