Art of the Athlete

Art and athletics are twin expressions of human excellence, each requiring creativity, elegance, and mastery of form. Just as artists harness line, color, and composition to convey emotion and energy, athletes use their bodies to create moments of strength, grace, and precision. Both artists and athletes present their work for the consumption and evaluation of spectators. And just as art can reflect as well as shape the culture around it, so too can sports provide powerful community bonds and a sense of identity. This exhibition celebrates the artistry inherent in athleticism and showcases the many dynamic connections between art and sport.

Several pieces in the show highlight the remarkable breadth of the world of sport, spanning not only familiar professional forms such as baseball and football but also fishing, hunting, and racing as well as Jacob Lawrence’s meditations on the universal human impulse to play. Other pieces—such as Mabel Pugh’s The Champion and Aaron Douglas’s The Athlete—remind us of the diversity that can be one of sport’s greatest strengths. In certain cases, the connection between art and athletics can be quite personal and literal, as in the case of Ernie Barnes, who not only played in the National Football League himself, but became the official artist of both the NFL and the 1984 Olympic Games.