Those of you that know me, know that I am on the board of South Shore Arts and if you have not heard of this organization, let alone been to any of their exhibits yet, I say it’s about time you did. I am personally inviting you. Come to their next exhibit. Let me tell you a little about it.
The exhibit We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball will be on display September 26 – December 19, 2010 and features original paintings by Kadir Nelson. It will be at the Center for Visual and Performing Arts, 1040 Ridge Road in Munster. 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, "Diz and Satch", 2004, Oil on canvas, Collection of San Diego Padres
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.
Kadir Nelson, "Safe at Home", 2005, Oil on canvas, Collection of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
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.
So don’t miss this one. Mark your calendars and get over there already!
South Shore Arts
We Are The Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball
At the Center for Visual and Performing Arts
1040 Ridge Road, Munster
September 26 – December 19, 2010
