The art of boxing

Muhammed Ali is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time. But he also packed a punch with art works, like this 1967 drawing called “The Crowd,” seen from his perspective looking out from the ring, with some in the audience smiling, some frowning. “I love that part where he is acknowledging that not only did he have fans, but he might have had some haters as well,” said curator Arden Sherman.

Four of Ali’s works are prominently featured in  “Strike Fast, Dance Lightly: Artists on Boxing,” at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach, Florida. It’s an exhibition devoted to boxing – winners, losers, and everything in-between.

Sherman says the show explores a host of different aspects about this most accessible of sports: “It’s rare to encounter a human of a certain age on this planet that doesn’t have an understanding of the sport of boxing,” she said.

Artists do seem to gravitate toward boxing. There are more than 100 works on display here – paintings, photographs and sculptures – including many by and about women. One work by Zoe Buchman features frilly fabrics on boxing gloves. Sherman said. “She’s someone who is consistently standing up for female rights and female empowerment.”

Sherman says the exhibit comes at a very auspicious time: “I believe, as humans, we find ourselves fighting for something or defending another thing. It is a contentious moment we live in, and what better way to express that but through the symbolism granted to us through the sport of boxing.”

So, the give-and-take in works like this, by George Bellows, perhaps America’s best-known painter of boxing, seems to take on new meaning.

This 1916 work, called “Introducing John L. Sullivan,” depicts not just a famous boxer and the announcer, but also the promoters, money makers, and wheeler-dealers behind all of it.

The exhibit features some heavyweight artists: There’s Roy Lichtenstein’s “Sweet Dreams Baby!” from 1965, and Keith Haring’s late 1980s painted steel sculpture.

Sherman says the artists are “thinking about love, violence, fantasy, death. … I think the artists are thinking about being alive. I think they are thinking about their own identity, and how they navigate that in this world.”

Among the most recent works is a pair of paintings from 2023 by Jared McGriff. “One of the things about boxing and this act of being in a battle is that it can be disorienting,” he said. “The thing that I think about with these two works is this idea of internal struggle and the idea of what it takes from an internal determination and focus standpoint to reach this level of athleticism.”

There are also flashes of humor, such as Michael Halsband’s 1985 photo of artists Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat in boxing gear:

… or Harry Benson’s famous shot of a very young Muhammad Ali meeting the very young Beatles in a Miami gym on their first trip to the U.S., in 1964:

Sherman said, “Who would have thought that these five would be inside of this ring together, and this would become this iconic image of boxing and fame?”

      
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Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Remington Korper.

Rita Braver

Rita Braver is a national correspondent for “CBS News Sunday Morning,” where she reports on everything from arts and culture to politics and foreign policy.