Bidspirit auction | Leroy Neiman ”F.X. McRory's Whiskey

Leroy Neiman ”F.X. McRory's Whiskey Bar” Serigraph - Signed lower right by the artist.  The print is not numbered.      Image: 18 1/2” x 30 1/2”  Frame: 26 1/2” x 43”    Condition: The image shows some light fading of the colors. Marks and nicks to the frame.    Artist Bio: LeRoy Neiman (1921–2012) studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago alongside Robert Indiana and Leon Golub, then taught there for about a decade. He met Hugh Hefner in 1954 and wrote and illustrated Playboy's ”Man at His Leisure” column from 1958 to 1973 — the vehicle that took him to the cafes, casinos, racetracks and arenas that became his subject — and served as official artist for five Olympic Games from 1972. His manner is a hot, saturated semi-Expressionism, slashing enamel-like strokes over a loose armature, drawn on site and amplified in the studio. F.X. McRory's opened in Seattle's Pioneer Square in 1977, famous for the size of its back-bar whiskey selection. Neiman saw it and told the owner he had never seen a bar like it; commissioned to paint it, he was defeated by the hundreds of bottles until his wife suggested working from the actual labels, which were soaked off and mailed to his Manhattan studio. The wall-sized original was finished in 1978 and the serigraph followed in 1980.