Black Labrador 1977

LeRoy Neiman painted this energetic dog, we don’t know when, but it just bounds off the canvas with so much energy. Imagine the scene, that turquoise sky, the wet green reeds and the excited rush of the Labrador, rendered in blues and purples. I can feel Neiman’s hand, quickly and intuitively capturing the dog's vitality and eagerness. The paint must have gone on thick and fast! Look at the way the body is just made up of brushstrokes, Neiman is a master, each daub of paint communicating feeling. Did he start with studies or was it immediate, alla prima? You know, I can feel the lineage of painters here, from Delacroix to the Futurist Boccioni. The subject is totally different but there's a shared vocabulary between them, an interest in energy, gesture and movement. Art is a conversation, isn't it? Across time, space, and subject, it's this ongoing exchange that pushes us forward.