All Told: My Art and Life Among Athletes, Playboys, Bunnies, and Provocateurs

by LeRoy Neiman

Overview

LeRoy Neiman was arguably the world’s most recognizable contemporary artist until his passing in June 2012. He broke the barrier between fine art and popular art while creating indelible images that helped define the twentieth century. But it is the life he lived and the people he knew that make the memoir of this scrappy Depression-era kid who became a swashbuckling bon vivant with the famous mustache such a marvelous historical canvas.
     Chronicler and confidant of Muhammad Ali, Neiman also traveled with Sinatra, cavorted with Dalí and Warhol, watched afternoon soaps with Dizzy Gillespie, played in Sly Stallone’s Rocky movies, exchanged quips with Nixon, smoked cigars with Castro, and experienced the terrorist attacks at the Munich Olympics alongside Peter Jennings,  Howard Cosell, and Jim McKay. And then there was his half-century relationship with Hugh Hefner as principle artistic contributor to Playboy, setting up studios in London and Paris to cover his Playboy beat, “Man at His Leisure,” and his creation of the Femlin, the iconic Playboy nymphette.
     With his life’s work, and in All Told, LeRoy Neiman captured sports heroes, movie stars, presidents, dishwashers, jet-setters, jockeys, and more than a few Bunnies at the Playboy Mansion—a panoramic record of society like no other.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780762785247
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	09/17/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	40 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

World-renowned artist LeRoy Neiman, who passed away in June 2012, married fine art to popular art with his brilliantly colored, energetic depictions of sports, celebrities, America at play, the Playboy Femlin, life on safari, and famous locations. Neiman was revered for his representations of sporting events and athletes--even considered the artistic counterpart to Muhammad Ali. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, he left high school in 1942 to join the U.S. Army, returning four years later to obtain his high school degree. He then studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (where, for a time, he taught), the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois. Early in the 1950s he became a fashion illustrator for the department store of Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., where he met Playboy founder Hugh Hefner in 1953. Neiman was a key artistic contributor to Playboy ever since. He lived in New York City, overlooking Central Park. There he kept his studio, offices, archives and penthouse on separate floors. His prints are eagerly collected, fetching impressive sums. He published more than a dozen books of his collected work, has won numerous awards, and is included in the fine art collections of the nation's top museums.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Unauthorized Beginning 1

Chapter 2 Drifter to Drafted 28

Chapter 3 Chicago Boho, or How I Went from Eating Pierogies at My Mother's Kitchen Table to Becoming a Crazy Artist 51

Chapter 4 Underground Artist 73

Chapter 5 Me, Hef, the Femlin, Lenny Bruce's Laundry, and the Bunny Dorm 97

Chapter 6 Bunny Hopping 122

Chapter 7 The Artist in Residence 171

Chapter 8 Muhammad Ali and the Voodoo Doodles 201

Chapter 9 As Seen on TV (and Everywhere Else) 233

Chapter 10 Presidents, Moguls, and Masters of the Game 269

Chapter 11 What's in a Name? 311

Summary of an Old-Timer 331

Acknowledgments 332

Index 333

About the Author 343

Editorial Reviews

"What intrigued me about LeRoy from the very beginning was that his work was rooted in fine art. He was teaching at the Art Institute when nobody else was blurring the lines between fine art and commercial art like he was. He's always had that distinctive LeRoy style, one that I knew from day one would define the unique nature of Playboy. Trust has been the key to our relationship, and he's the only artist I've worked with for more than fifty years. He's a tremendous talent and a tremendous human being." —Hugh Hefner "It was not unusual for me to look up from a workout or a sparring session to see LeRoy perched on a chair, off to the side, studying my movements while sketching in quick strokes. With his bold colors and distinctive artistic style, LeRoy's art and sketches captured my attention and imagination. He made me look as colorful and pretty on paper as I was in person—now that's talent!" —Muhammad Ali "LeRoy Neiman's love of jazz is real. His series of stunning poster art, depicting Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday contributed immensely to the success that is The Newport Jazz Festival. LeRoy donated this work to us in the years between 1964 and 2004. He would accept no compensation, which we couldn't have afforded any way. His work and his story, All Told, are priceless." —George Wein, jazz impresario, founder of The Newport Jazz Festival "Pop culture's court painter, LeRoy Neiman, turns 91, an occasion he'll celebrate by publishing an often amusing autobiography…" —The New York Times Style magazine

From the Publisher

The nonagenarian artist reviews his long career as one of the country's most popular and public painters. Neiman's most interesting pages deal with the earliest days of his life: family history, discovery of his ability, early fondness for boxers and poolrooms, days in the military. He landed at Normandy only days after D-Day. Following some formal study after the war, he headed for Chicago and a future that would one day glow as brightly as one of his signature paintings. Early on, he fell under the influence (and payroll) of Playboy's Hugh Hefner, and he writes with an odd cagey frankness about the parties in Hefner's mansion. He tells of his marriage to a woman whose capacity for tolerance seems mythical then proceeds into the less interesting final two-thirds of the volume, which often seem more like a chronicle of his adventures with celebrities from the worlds of sport, Hollywood, Vegas, politics and even the Mob. He declares repeatedly that he doesn't really care that the professional art world shunned him at times--especially when he became a fixture on The Wide World of Sports and other shows. But he mentions this so many times that his claim rings hollow. Occasionally he offers something like cultural criticism ("We're a country that craves stars"), and he reproduces a generous, colorful assortment of his work throughout the decades--so once again we see those familiar, iconic images of Muhammad Ali, Bobby Fischer, Mickey Mantle and so many others. Although Neiman's words are not often extraordinary, his images caught and characterized an era.

Kirkus Reviews