National Art Museum of Sport has role in New York's new Sports Museum of America


The National Art Museum of Sport is among the 50 sports museums and institutions that are partners of the Sports Museum of America opening May 7, 2008, in lower Manhattan. NAMOS is the only art museum represented.

The $100 million, 100,000 square-foot facility near the Statue of Liberty ferry will be an interactive attraction dedicated to the history and significance of all sports. Partners will have a presence in the “Hall of Halls” and the National Art Museum of Sport will participate with rotating exhibits of sport art.

Among the partners are the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, the NCAA Hall of Champions, the College Football Hall of Fame, and the U.S. Olympic Visitors Center.

The Sports Museum of America has been designated as the new home of the Heisman Trophy, first presented in 1935 to represent excellence and achievement on the college football field. Until 9/11, it was housed in New York’s Downtown Athletic Club.

The Sports Museum of America is being funded partially through private investors and in part by post 9/11 Liberty Bonds.

 

Peyton Manning limited edition giclees available

Sports artist James Fiorentino's watercolor of Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning that hangs in the National Art Museum of Sport is available in a limited edition of hand-pulled giclee prints in honor of the Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl win.All proceeds from sale of the 18 by 23-inch giclee prints at $200 each will benefit the Museum.

Other James Fiorentino prints of noted quarterbacks, including Eli Manning and Brett Favre, are avaialble at www.jamesfiorentino.com

 

The Big O at the National Art Museum of Sport

When the Solutions Center at Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis celebrated its 1000th solution of assisting local agencies. institutions and small businesses with interns and projects, basketball great Oscar Robertson was the honored guest.

The event was in the lobby of University Place Conference Center which also serves as one of the National Art Museum of Sports’ galleries. On exhibit was a watercolor of Robertson as a Cincinnati player painted by James Fiorentino. Guests with digital cameras had a great time photographing Robertson with his portrait.

Robertson starred as a high school player at Crispus Attucks High School, a few blocks from the National Art Museum of Sport site. He led his 1955 team to the Indiana High School Athletic Association championship, the first Indianapolis school to do – and repeated in 1956. He went on to play at the University of Cincinnati taking the team to the NCAA Final Four, won an Olympic gold medal, spent 14 years in the NBA with the Cincinnati Royals and Milwaukee Bucks, and was named The Player of the Century by the National Association of Basketball Coaches.

Now a Cincinnati business man, Robertson worked with a Solutions Center team who preserved and presented his clippings to the Crispus Attucks Museum.

Fiorentino is a New Jersey-based artist whose credits include paintings for sport card companies, book jackets, posters, private commissions, and a series of Kellogg cereal boxes. The Oscar Robertson painting was commissioned by Jim Herbst and loaned to NAMOS.

 


 

 

 

Acquisitions

NAMOS given 26 C. W. Mundy paintings of NBA greats

           

The National Art Museum of Sport has received a gift of 26 acrylic paintings of National Basketball Association players by Indianapolis artist, Charles Warren (C. W.) Mundy.

The 26 paintings include 24 22-inch square portraits with action vignettes of NBA stars such as Larry Bird, Reggie Miller, and Magic Johnson. In addition, there are large paintings of Michael Jordan and the Dream Team that won gold in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The Dream Team painting is on loan to the new Sports Museum  of America in New York City.

Basketball was of special interest to Mundy, a native of Indianapolis, the capitol of a state known for basketball. He won a college basketball scholarship.  The paintings given to the Museum by an anonymous sports lover were painted during the latter part of the 22 years Mundy spent as a sports artist. It was work that included illustrations for Indiana University’s legendary basketball program, the United State Golf Association, Pro Golfers Association, and the NBA.

In 1994, Mundy initiated a career change from sports art to plein-air impressionistic painting. He developed a distinctive style of thick impasto and bravura brush strokes quite different from finely detailed sport portraits. He achieved master status in the American Impressionistic Society and Oil Painters of America and has won awards and been exhibited throughout the United States.