Sports are an art. Ask anyone. But mostly ask the Tampa Museum of Art, because Having a Ball: Striking Portraits from America’s Pastime by George Sosnak marks its second sports-related exhibit in as many years (the first was last year’s Who Shot Sports: A Photographic History, 1843 to the Present). Instead of examining the work of many sports artists, though, this exhibit goes in-depth to the work of a pretty famous folk art baseball painter, George Sosnak (1924-1992). Sosnak always loved baseball (as young boys of a certain age alwaye did), and his enthusiasm translated into two related careers: a minor league ump and then an artist who painted baseballs with baseball-related images and statistics.
How’d he start with the painting? Welp, in the 1950s, a fan asked Sosnak to paint a picture of her favorite player on a ball, and, well, the rest is (art) history. For 40 years Sosnak painted vibrant, detailed baseballs. Some of his work detailed moments, others honored players and still others represented championship teams.
He also challenged himself to paint a ball for every ball player in the Baseball Hall of Fame, and each ball for this includes the Hall of Fame plaque and an overview of the ball player’s career. Art historians who track this sort of thing say he started roughly 3,000 baseballs, and finished about 800. The exhibit at the Tampa Museum of Art includes works from Sosnak: 43 baseballs and and 10 works on paper.
Having a Ball: George Sosnak’s Striking Portraits from America’s Pastime organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 5, 2018.
