The untold story of an American hustler who upset the art world and became a pop culture icon, cutting a swath across twentieth-century history and culture.
 
LeRoy Neiman—the cigar-smoking and mustachioed artist famous for his Playboy illustrations, sports paintings, and brash interviews—stood among the twentieth century’s most famous, wealthy, and polarizing artists. His stylish renderings of musicians, athletes, and sporting events captivated fans but baffled critics, who accused Neiman of debasing art with popular culture. Neiman cashed in on the controversy, and his extraordinary popularity challenged the norms of what art should be, where it belongs, and who should have access to it.

The story of a Depression-era ragamuffin–turned–army chef–turned–celebrity artist, Neiman’s biography is a rollicking ride through twentieth-century American history, punctuated by encounters with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Frank Sinatra, Joe Namath, and Andy Warhol. In the whirlwind of his life, Neiman himself once remarked that even he didn’t know who he really was—but, he said, the fame and money that came his way made it all worth it. In this first biography of the captivating and infamous man, Travis Vogan hunts for the real Neiman amid the America that made him.
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Travis Vogan is professor of journalism, mass communication, and American studies at the University of Iowa. He is the author of numerous books on sports, media, and culture, most recently The Boxing Film: A Cultural and Transmedia History.

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Pure Neimanism

Part 1: Underdog
Chapter 1: LeRoy Runquist
Chapter 2: Street Artist
Chapter 3: A Roguish Role Model
Chapter 4: Midwestern Bohemian
Chapter 5: A Reporter Type of Painter

Part 2: Celebrity
Chapter 6: Hefner’s Court Painter
Chapter 7: Playboy’s Norman Rockwell
Chapter 8: The Sports Artist
Chapter 9: At the Hotel des Artistes
Chapter 10: The Heavyweight Champion of Art
Chapter 11: TV Artist in a Xerox Society
Chapter 12: Middle America’s Michelangelo

Part 3: Outcast
Chapter 13: Bringing Disease to the Hospital
Chapter 14: The LeRoy Neiman of . . .
Chapter 15: The Price and Cost of Legitimacy
Chapter 16: All Told

Conclusion: Fame and Legacy

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index