Artist: LeRoy Neiman
Title: Joe Namath
Year created: Circa 1971, from the Original 1970 Painting
Medium: Custom-Framed Vintage Poster on Heavy Paper
Edition: Open Edition, Signed and Dated in the Plate
Height (inches): 28-1/4
Width (inches): 22-1/4
Depth (inches): 1
Signed by the artist
Signed Area: front
This piece is framed.
Description of piece:
Football icon Joe Namath is captured in this great large-format vintage poster by LeRoy Neiman, depicted in his New York Jets #12 jersey!
Newly custom framed in a black gallery-style frame, this original vintage poster is signed and dated in the plate by artist LeRoy Neiman. Due to the immense popularity of Joe Namath, who reached cultural icon status much like boxing’s Muhammad Ali of the same era, there were several different posters created from Neiman’s original Joe Namath painting. Framed size measures 28-1/4" in height x 22-1/4" width x 1" depth.
Elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985, Joe Namath, nicknamed "Broadway Joe", played professional football as a quarterback in the American Football League (AFL) and National Football League (NFL) during the 1960s and 1970s. Namath was an AFL icon and played for that league's New York Jets for most of his professional football career, finishing his career with the Los Angeles Rams.
Internationally renowned, Namath retired after playing 143 games over 13 years in the AFL and NFL, including playoffs. His teams had an overall record of 68 wins, 71 losses, and four ties, 64–64–4 in 132 starts, and 4–7 in relief. He completed 1,886 passes for 27,663 yards, threw 173 touchdowns, and had 220 interceptions, for a career passer rating of 65.5. Namath played for three division champions (the 1968 and 1969 AFL East Champion Jets and the 1977 NFC West Champion Rams), earned one league championship (1968 AFL Championship), and one Super Bowl victory (Super Bowl III).
In 1999, he was ranked number 96 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, the only player on the list to have spent a majority of his career with the Jets. In his 1975 autobiography, coach Paul "Bear" Bryant called Namath the most natural athlete he had ever coached.
Joe Namath subsequently parlayed his fame into success with endorsement deals and as a nightclub owner, talk show host, pioneering advertising spokesman, theater, motion picture, and television actor, and sports broadcaster, and most recently, author.
Artist bio:
LeRoy Neiman (1921-2012) studied in Chicago at the School of Art Institute of Chicago, where he then taught for 10 years before moving to New York City in 1962. Renowned for his painting and printmaking, Neiman is one of the few artists of the 20th century whose work is known by millions, both nationally and internationally.
Best known for his brilliantly colored, stunningly energetic images of the world of sports, exclusive leisure activities, and the world of entertainment, LeRoy Neiman's art is unique, and his work is without any real comparison in the art world. Neiman broke the barriers of many of the most hallowed assumptions of modern art history and contemporary criticism, his style exploding with the dramatic intensity of Abstract Expressionist brushstrokes, strokes that pick out action: whether it is the action of sports, the action of a nightclub, casino or yacht race, or capturing the inimitable majesty of nature.
LeRoy Neiman published hundreds of limited edition serigraphs which have become as much sought after as the prints of Miro, Chagall, and Picasso. Exhibited worldwide, from Moscow to Tokyo to Caracas, and honored with many awards for his art, Neiman is an icon of contemporary art. His work is held in the permanent collections of innumerable museums including the Whitney Museum in NYC, Baltimore Museum of Fine Art, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, the Hermitage in Leningrad, and the Art Institute of Chicago.