Artists Associated With Sport
Here are some artists who played a bit of sport, or sportsmen and women who dabbled in art, while others just create artworks about sport.
Athletes who are also Artists
- Fauvist Maurice de Vlaminck was professional cyclist
- British painter Ben Nicholson was a keen tennis and table tennis player.
- Matthew Barney, a contemporary American video artist, was on his high school wrestling and football teams.
- Man Ray and Marcel Duchamp, two of the most famous artists of the 20th Century, met over a game of totem tennis.
- Al Oerter, the winner of discus gold medals at four successive Games, was also a talented abstract painter. He helped develop the "Art of the Olympians Museum" which includes work from Olympians Bob Beamon, Cammy Myler and Shane Gould.
- Danish artist Asger Jorn invented the sport of three-sided football.
Artists Creating Sporting Artwork
The Olympic Games Art Competition has long since gone, though there is still a prize given out to artists creating sport-inspired art. Since 1983, the United States Sports Academy has presented The Sport Artist of the Year Award to an individual artist who captures the spirit and life of sport, using a variety of art media including film, video or sculpture to depict the breadth and scope of both the agony and the ecstasy of sport. There are a few galleries that showcase sporting art.
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