pictures we have in early Impressionism of informal and spontaneous sociability—breakfasts, picnics, promenades, boating trips, holidays—these urban idylls…present the objective forms of bourgeois recreation in the 1860s and 70s.” Yet while the themes of the Impressionists, prescient and avant-garde in the nineteenth century, still appeal to modern audiences, much of their appeal is now linked to their value as records of an earlier age. It is in Neiman’s work that we can find arguably the liveliest, most creative, and most socially-aware depiction of the leisure life of the post-World War II decades. Further, he applied vibrant color in depicting this spectacular imagery.
The idea that my paintings depict leisure and not work is just an illusion. In professional sports, all the athletes are working, and the officials are working, too. It's just the same as in the restaurant scenes that I paint, and in fine restaurants in fact. You go to New York's Four Seasons, Le Cirque, "21", any restaurant halfway expensive, people are working, making contacts. Everyone at "21" is at work—the checkroom person, the bartenders, the person who brings the water, the person who takes the plates away and there are the chefs, waiters, busboys. At a Washington, D.C. soirée, or charity ball, people are making contacts. They're not just enjoying themselves. Neiman also commented on the role of spectators and other ordinary participants:
Joe Namath, 1969
LeBron James, 2007
Neiman was carefully selective about which modern leisure he represented, and how. Consider the content of his drawings and paintings. Sporting events are a central leisure activity that he portrays. In this collection, we can see Joe Namath, drawn in 1969 when Neiman was artist-in-residence with the New York Jets in their historic Super Bowl championship season. Other notable examples of the sporting life are tennis phenom, Serena Williams, and basketball’s current megastar, LeBron James, captured in 2007 when he was still a Cleveland Cavalier. Another major topic is night-time leisure pursuits such as casino gambling, concert music, theater, opera, and bars. The subject of animals was a fruitful one for Neiman. Often linked to the leisure activity of the safari, since most are the kind of wild animals typically associated with that activity, Neiman confirms this connection, for when asked to explain how he selected the animals that he paints, he commented that they were almost all subjects he painted while on safari, “I've been to Africa twice. Most of the animals I painted are the ones I saw on safari.” A simple, deft portrait of an Elephant can be found in this collection, rendered in black ink. While Neiman depicts glamorous settings and people, his drawings and paintings often include ordinary people too. Alongside the heroes and celebrities are spectators, customers, and working people. In the bar, restauElephant, c1990 rant, and café scenes, there are anonymous customers as well as waiters, waitresses, and bartenders. Gran Caffe Lavena in Piazza San Marco (1996) shows a customer identified as Roberto chatting with bartender, Sabrina, during what Neiman annotates on the drawing as “a quiet night.” In the fight scenes are often a referee, trainer, and seconds. In the street scenes are passersby. In the casinos there are croupiers and anonymous gamblers. In the sailboat scenes are unidentified sailors. The bench and park scenes are full of ordinary people. That Neiman often depicts a broad range of social classes, and ethnic and racial minorities, is no accident. He is keenly aware of the workers who make the events possible: When I go to any kind of bash or social thing, I always notice the working guy right away, the limousine driver, the maitre d', the waiter, the hat check girl, the disc jockey and the hired musicians, because there are so many of them around. It's amazing how few artists come out of every generation that thought about all that… all that traffic out there.
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Serena Williams, 2002
Race tracks and prize fights, rich, poor, everyone mingles together. Boxing and horse racing you have all the levels. And everyone talks to everyone else. When I paint, I paint the whole strata. This is surely an important reason why Neiman appeals beyond wealthy collectors to middle and working-class people. Viewers can imagine themselves at the prestigious occasions Neiman likes to depict, especially since he avoids the slightly mocking, ironic view of popular culture implicit in some Pop Art. In these ways, Neiman adjusted art for a media world where television, and now the internet, makes celebrities and spectacles, often sporting, the currency of mainstream life. Neiman was also in the vanguard of artists escaping what he dubbed “the old prewar [sexual] prudishness.” Until roughly the mid-nineteenth century, artists could generally depict naked women only if they were clad in antiquity or religion or were allegorical—called Venus, Sabine, Truth and so forth—to be acceptable. Even after that, until the era of Playboy and Neiman, female nudity could scarcely be depicted as a spectacle to be enjoyed. Neiman’s friend, Hugh Hefner, founded Playboy in 1953, and quickly installed Neiman as artist-in-residence, to depict the magazine’s mixture of thoughtful journalism and fun. Neiman’s first assignment was illustrating a short story called “Black Country” by Charles Beaumont, about a jazz Nude with Mask c1985 Conte Crayon on Paper 18 x 24 in. musician who committed suicide, which got Playboy its first prestigious prize: Gold at the Chicago Art Directors Awards. In 1956, Neiman came up with his famous Femlin, a frisky, mostly-naked female figure, which he drew in many variants for Playboy throughout his life. In this exhibition, Nude with Mask (1985) appears unambiguous in its evocation of sexual pleasure. 7