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THE NEGRO LEAGUES
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Artist captures glory of
baseball's Negro Leagues
By MAURY ALLEN
of TheColumnists.com
In this 60th year
anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the big league color
barrier as he arrived in Brooklyn in 1947, one artist is keeping
alive the pre-Robinson baseball of the old Negro Leagues.
Lou Grant, 73, a former graphic artist and Brooklyn neighborhood
baseball player as a catcher and second baseman, has been a full
time painter for 10 years with emphasis on the old Negro Leagues
and the nostalgia of his Sheepshead Bay neighborhood in Brooklyn.
His magnificent paintings representing the grand stars of the
Negro Leagues, which prospered at Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds
and Ebbets Field in New York and across the country in Pittsburgh,
Kansas City, Washington, D.C. and the deep south, are on exhibit
in dozens of galleries with hundreds of collectors.
At New York City’s Country Corner at 1086 Madison Avenue,
owner Frank J. Miele, exhibiting American Folk Art, has a wonderful
collection of Grant’s work selling for an average of $2,000
to $2,500.
Grant’s list of personal collectors includes Fred Wilpon,
the Brooklyn-born owner of the New York Mets and the art exhibition
center at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown,
New York.
Grant’s website, LouGrantPainting.com, shows many of his
favorite works with old Negro League players in the traditional
baseball positions pitching a high hard one, running down a fly
ball, smacking a long ball into the seats and squatting behind
home plate calling the game.
“I spent a lot of time playing ball as a kid,” Grant
said. “I was really mad about baseball and loved catching.
That’s why one of my favorites is of the catcher with his
Tools of Ignorance.”
Grant said that all of the paintings come from his own memories
of attending Negro League games in the 1930s and 1940s and watching
the exploits of Hall of Fame greats such as Satchel Paige, Josh
Gibson and Cool Papa Bell (so fast he could be in bed before
the light went out) as well as many others.
“I’ve always tried to capture what the Negro Leagues
were like, the players, the mixed up uniforms, the fans, the
excitement of it all,” said Grant.
Grant grew up in Brooklyn, attended the High School of Industrial
Arts and then the famed Cooper Union in New York before becoming
a graphic artist
“About 10 years ago I saw that computers were really taking
over that profession so I turned to full time painting,”
he said.
His magnificent paintings captured the fun, the drama, the history
of the old Negro Leagues, the center of baseball life for millions
of African Americans before the arrival of Robinson at the big
league level. The Negro Leagues bravely fought on for a place
in the entertainment pantheon until 1953.
By then all black youngsters playing baseball, many of whom started
in the Negro leagues like Robinson, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron and
even Paige, had their eyes on big league teams.
It was Ted Williams, at his Hall of Fame induction in 1966, who
called attention to the greatness of Negro League players and
asked for their admission into Baseball’s hallowed hall.
Robinson had been the first black player elected to Baseball’s
shrine in 1962. After Williams made his plea, many other stars
captured in Grant’s representative paintings, followed into
the game’s shrine.
Grant lived most of his adult life in upstate New York at New
Paltz and only recently moved back to New York City where he
can paint freely and exhibit his work in important galleries.
Besides New York City galleries, his work can be seen at the
Adam Clayton Powell Building in Harlem, where former President
Bill Clinton maintains offices, and in his old playing fields
of Brooklyn’s Parade Grounds at Grand Army Plaza.
“My wife works downtown and I drive her there every day,
drive home, feed our cats and start painting,” Grant said.
Grant said he remembers the days when his family would pack picnic
baskets and set out for the Negro League games at Yankee Stadium,
while the Yankees were away, or the old Polo Grounds in Harlem.
“Some times we would sit through two or three games in one
day,” he said. “I don’t know how the players did
it. We would see some guys in two or three different uniforms
in one day.”
Grant has marvelously captured that lost era in his paintings
and collectors will be thrilled at the nostalgia of a different
lifestyle, a different sense of the game and a different appreciation
of the skills of the athletes.
Negro League players made barely enough money to survive, rode
in rickety buses or damaged cars, stayed in flop houses and ate
often in the dirty yards of neighborhood food stands. Not one
of them really ever complained
It simply beat the alterative of not playing baseball at all.
“Capturing those old days is very joyous for me,” Grant
said. “I remember the Negro Leagues with so much pleasure.”
That pleasure can be shared by anyone smart enough to collect
Grant’s work.
©2007 by Maury Allen. The Maury Allen caricature is ©2001
by Jim Hummel. The photo of Lou Grant and copy of his painting
"E-Glove" are used courtesy of Grant's website www.LouGrantPainting.com.
All rights reserved by Lou Grant. This column first posted Sept.
17, 2007.
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