Leroy Neiman Vegas

LeRoy Neiman, born LeRoy Runquist, is best known for his vibrantly colored paintings and screen prints, which draw on Impressionism and Pop Art and frequently feature portraits of athletes and musicians as well as depictions of sporting events. He is renowned for creating art during live coverage of the Olympics and other major American and international sports competitions. He once commented, “I use (bold) color to emphasize the scent, the spirit, and the feeling of the thing I’ve experienced.” 

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Neiman showed an early aptitude for drawing. After returning home from WWII, he studied at the Saint Paul School of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where his classmates included Robert Indiana and Leon Golub. Upon graduation in 1950, he began teaching at SAIC.

In 1953, his oil painting Idle Boats won first prize at the Twin City Show, where the Minneapolis Art Institute purchased it. Neiman’s reputation quickly grew, and museums such as the Carnegie Pittsburgh International Exhibition of Contemporary Painting, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington purchased his works.

In 1954, Neiman’s famous association with Playboy magazine began to take shape. Hugh Hefner commissioned Neiman to create an illustration for this fledgling magazine, and his piece won the 1954 Chicago Art Directors Award. This led to a relationship with Playboy that lasted five decades and included Neiman writing and illustrating the “Man at His Leisure” section and the creation of the well-known “Femlin” — a female nymph wearing only opera gloves, stockings and high heels — which appeared on the “Party Jokes” page in every issue since 1955.

In 1970, the 5th Dimension commissioned Neiman to create a cover illustration for the pop group’s album Portrait. In 1994, he created the illustration used for the playbill and the immense Broadway mural for the musical Busker Alley. He was inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the highest honor of the state of Illinois, the Order of Lincoln, in 2009. 

Today, you can find Neiman’s works in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art (Newfields), among others. 

On 1stDibs, find LeRoy Neiman prints, drawings, paintings and more.

Bring energy and an array of welcome colors and textures into your space by decorating with figurative fine-art prints and works on paper.

Figurative art stands in contrast to abstract art, which is more expressive than representational. The oldest-known work of figurative art is a figurative painting — specifically, a rock painting of an animal made over 40,000 years ago in Borneo. This remnant of a remote past has long faded, but its depiction of a cattle-like creature in elegant ocher markings endures.

Since then, figurative art has evolved significantly as it continues to represent the world, including a breadth of works on paper, including printmaking. This includes woodcuts, which are a type of relief print with perennial popularity among collectors. The artist carves into a block and applies ink to the raised surface, which is then pressed onto paper. There are also planographic prints, which use metal plates, stones or other flat surfaces as their base. The artist will often draw on the surface with grease crayon and then apply ink to those markings. Lithographs are a common version of planographic prints.

Figurative art printmaking was especially popular during the height of the Pop art movement, and this kind of work can be seen in artist Andy Warhol’s extensive use of photographic silkscreen printing. Everyday objects, logos and scenes were given a unique twist, whether in the style of a comic strip or in the use of neon colors.

Explore an impressive collection of figurative art prints for sale on 1stDibs and read about how to arrange your wall art.