WE ARE THE SHIP: THE STORY OF NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL
Featuring Original Paintings by Kadir Nelson
At the Center for Visual and Performing Arts
1040 Ridge Road, Munster
September 26 – December 19, 2010
This exhibit is touring nationally and includes over 30 paintings as well as sketches. It's about the story of Negro League baseball—the story of gifted athletes and determined owners; of racial discrimination and international sportsmanship; of fortunes won and lost; of triumphs and defeats on and off the field. It is a perfect mirror for the social and political history of black America in the first half of the twentieth century. But most of all, the story of the Negro Leagues is about hundreds of unsung heroes who overcame segregation, hatred, terrible conditions, and low pay to do the one thing they loved more than anything else in the world: play ball.
Kadir Nelson spent seven years creating paintings for a book which is dedicated to the preservation of the history of the Negro Baseball Leagues. Nelson interviewed former Negro League players, traveled to museums around the country, poured over old photographs, firsthand testimonies and documentaries, collected baseball memorabilia, sports equipment and uniforms, then posed and photographed himself in them, all with the intention of putting himself in the shoes of a former Negro Leaguer to recreate an authentic depiction of life in the Negro Baseball Leagues.
Nelson tells the story of Negro League baseball from its beginnings in the 1920s through its decline after Jackie Robinson crossed over to the majors in 1947. In just a few years, the Negro National League grew into the third largest African-American owned business in the world. It reached its apex in the mid-1940s with its crown jewel, the East-West All-Star Classic that was held every summer at Chicago’s Comiskey Park.
Nelson's book, We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, was a New York Times best-seller and the New York Times Best Illustrated Book of 2008. The book also received a Coretta Scott King Author Award, an Illustration Honor and the Robert F. Sibert Medal from the American Library Association.
The title of the book and the exhibit come from a quote by Rube Foster, founder of the Negro National League: “We are the ship; all else the sea.”
If you have seen the new Negro Leagues Baseball stamps at the Post Office, you have already seen Nelson's work. The Rube Foster stamp features his paintings.
The tour was developed and managed by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, an exhibition tour developement company in Kansas City, Missouri.
Above:
Kadir Nelson, Safe at Home, 2005, Oil on canvas, Collection of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
Kadir Nelson, Diz and Satch, 2004, Oil on canvas, Collection of San Diego Padres
BEHIND THE SCENES WITH ANN AND MARIA PONCE
June 13 – September 13, 2010
Opening Reception: Sunday, June 13, 1-3pm
Ann Ponce, a portrait and landscape painter, and her daughter Maria Ponce, a commercial portrait and fashion photographer, have combined their talents on several occasions. In 2003 and 2004, they showed works about a trip to Mexico and the men in their lives. Then in 2009, they undertook a theme they know all too well—television.
Phil Ponce, husband of Ann and father to Maria, is the long-time host of WTTW’s Chicago Tonight. Anthony Ponce (a reporter for NBC 5) and Dan Ponce (formerly a reporter with ABC 7 and now pursuing a singing career with the a cappella group Straight No Chaser) are the sons and brothers to the Ponce women. Maria Ponce explains the inspiration for the theme of their latest collaboration: “My Dad and brothers are all on TV but that’s not how they really are. I thought, "Wouldn’t it be cool to explore the other side of reporters?”
ON TV/OFF TV, their joint exhibit this past fall at Packer Schopf Gallery in Chicago, included black-and-white photographs by Maria and large-scale oil paintings by Ann. Chicago newscasters such as Linda Yu, Mark Suppelsa and Ginger Zee are featured in clean, informal, unadorned photographs contrasted with richly painted portraits highlighting reporters such as Robin Robinson, Warner Saunders and Kathy Brock.
Ann has been painting for over 30 years. She studied drawing and painting at Indiana University, then at Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design in Denver. From 1988 to 1997 Ann taught portraiture, figure drawing and painting at the Evanston Art Center in Evanston, Illinois. Maria graduated from Indiana University in 2002. Her work has taken her to Atlanta, Los Angeles, Paris and New York. She has returned to her roots in Chicago, where she has a studio in Ravenswood.
Come meet the artists on Sunday, June 13th, from 1-3pm. This exhibit has been organized with Aron Packer of Packer Schopf Gallery, Chicago.
Above, top: Maria Ponce, Phil Ponce, Black & white photography
Ann Ponce, Madame Generation X, (Anna Davlantes-FOX32), Oil on linen
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South Shore Arts will present the 67th Annual Salon Show, January 9 through March 27, 2011.
The Salon Show offers $10,000 in cash awards. South Shore Arts is home of the Helen V. Surovek Memorial Award!
Entry deadline is 5pm, December 3, 2010. For eligibility and other helpful information, please download the entry form below.
Salon Show Entry Form (2.3MB pdf)
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