San Francisco 49ers vs. Miami Dolphins ‘Post Season Classic’ 1985

LeRoy Neiman made this painting, ‘San Francisco 49ers vs. Miami Dolphins ‘Post Season Classic’, using strokes of vibrant blues, greens, reds and purples. It’s a chaotic scene, a blur of movement and colour. It makes me wonder what it felt like to be him, standing there, trying to capture this fleeting moment of intense action. Look at how he builds up the texture, thick dabs of paint creating a sense of depth and energy. The players are a tangle of limbs and jerseys, almost abstract in their depiction, yet you still get the essence of the game. Neiman wasn’t after realism; it’s more like an emotional response to the scene. That one stroke of red, slashing across the center, it’s like the pulse of the game, the adrenaline coursing through the players. It reminds me a bit of de Kooning’s energy, that same willingness to let the paint take over. Artists like Neiman, like all of us really, are just trying to make sense of the world, and they’re doing it through colour and gesture, leaving their mark on the canvas and in our collective imagination.