User:Namosann/sandbox

The National Art Museum of Sport With nearly 1000 works of art, the National Art Museum of Sport (NAMOS) is one of the United States’ largest collections of fine art depicting sports. The collection is exhibited, free of charge to the public, in the public areas of University Place Conference Center on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis in Downtown Indianapolis.

Collections
Over 40 sports are represented in the Museum founded in 1959. Noted contemporary artists such as Ray Ellis, Peter Corbin, James Fiorentino, Leroy Neiman, Rhoda Sherbell and C.W. Mundy are in the Museum’s collection. Among art created in the 19th and early 20th centuries are works by Alfred Boucher, Ogden Pliessner, Winslow Homer and George Bellows. The NAMOS collection includes several focused collections. One consists of 53 works on paper, 22 sculptures, a tapestry and artifacts that record the traditional games played by the Inuit people of northern Canada. Another includes 30 original graphite and ink sports cartoons created by the late Willard Mullin in the late 1930s. Twenty-four paintings of NBA stars and a series of paintings of Groggs, whimsical depictions of frogs playing sports, by Germain G. Glidden, also add to the Museum’s collection. An additional special collection contains over 150 steel and wood engravings from the mid-19th century that provide a view of the rise of interest in sports as leisure time increased for the middle class. It was a time when improved communications, such as the telegraph and the burgeoning number of newspapers, meant that news of sports events could easily spread. Railroads made it possible for teams to travel for competition. There were new inventions such as roller skates and bicycles. Game rules were codified.

Exhibits
Exhibits, both from the permanent collection and of loaned work, have been an important part of the National Art Museum of Sport’s programming since its earliest days. Its first was in 1962, just three years after its founding and before it had amassed its own collection. Over 100 have been organized since. Two were at Olympic sites: Mexico City for the 1968 Summer Games and at Lake Placid, N.Y., for the 1980 Winter Games. In 2010, NAMOS launched what is to be an annual juried sport art competition with the jurors’ selections exhibited in the museum.

Mission
The National Art Museum of Sport has a two-pronged mission: To encourage sports artists in their efforts to create sport art, and to collect, preserve and share the best examples of sport art it can acquire. Since 2000, the Museum has maintained a web site that includes biographies and images of approximately 75 artists. NAMOS is governed by a Board of Governors with representatives from several other states and countries as well as its host city. It receives no financial support from Indiana University and relies on private donations for operation and augmenting the collection.

History
The National Art Museum of Sport was founded in 1959 in New York City by the late Germain G. Glidden, a champion squash player and portrait artist with a strong belief in sport and art as universal languages that create understanding among all people. The idea for a museum marrying his two passions was first discussed over a tennis game with his Connecticut friend, Gordon Hough. As the idea grew, Glidden gathered supporters from the sport, business and art worlds. The Museum was chartered by the Regents of the State of New York in 1959. Even before the Museum had a home of its own and a collection, it mounted an exhibit of loaned work in 1962 in the then IBM Gallery in New York. It furthered its mission of promoting and sharing sport art with a collection of sport art that traveled to schools and museums in the years before the internet made such work easily accessible. By 1968, NAMOS had a donated collection and a home at Madison Square Garden. Access to athletic events and their stars at MSG made it possible for NAMOS to mount appealing special events. In 1978 NAMOS found a new home in the Peterson Library at the University of New Haven, Conn. The Board of Trustees continued to dream of a dedicated museum space with a professional staff. It was a dream-come-true set in motion by the Pan American Games in Indianapolis in 1987. Frank McKinney Jr., an Olympian and bank chairman, was aware of the NAMOS collection and sent an emissary to New Haven to discuss loaning work to a sport art exhibit being planned for the Pan American Games. This collaboration led to Lilly Endowment Inc., which supports community development, granting NAMOS funds to move to Indianapolis and professionally staff a museum. A gallery was created in Chase Tower. In early 1991, the National Art Museum of Sport opened with an exhibit that set high standards and defined sport art. It was “Sport in Art from American Museums” that included work selected by 50 museum directors from sport art in their museums. The catalogue from the exhibit has been used as a textbook for university level courses. In 1994 NAMOS moved to Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis where it is currently located in University Place. Approximately 125,000 traverse the corridors each year. For more information, please go to www.namos.iupui.edu.