Leroy Neiman

LeRoy Leslie Runquist was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1921. His father, a railroad worker, deserted the family when he was five. His mother remarried and he took his stepfather’s surname and became LeRoy Neiman in 1926. Neiman was raised in the blue-collar Frog Town neighborhood of St. Paul.

Neiman exhibited his art talent at a young age, He drew ink tattoos on the arms of his classmates at the Roman Catholic school that he attended and sold food ad illustrations to local grocery stores.

He was drafted into the army in 1942. He was sent to posts in the European theater, where served as a cook. When he wasn’t cooking, he drew risqué murals on the kitchen and mess hall walls, which earned him a place in the Army’s Special Services Division, where he painted sets for Red Cross Shows in Germany after the war.

When he left the Army, Neiman studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and obtained a BFA in 1950. He taught figure drawing and fashion illustration at the Institute for ten years.

Neiman was doing freelance work for the Carson Pirie Scott department store in Chicago, when he met Hugh Hefner. Hefner was working for the store as a copywriter and was about to publish the first issue of Playboy magazine.

Hefner and Neiman met again, in 1954, after Playboy had started up. Neiman invited Hefner to his apartment to see his paintings and Neiman was hired as an illustrator for Playboy, a job he did for more than five decades.

In 1957, Neiman married Janet Byrne, a student at the Art Institute of Chicago. The couple lived in the historic Hotel des Artistes building on Central Park West for more than fifty years. 

For his column in Playboy, Neiman was sent to illustrate sporting events around the world, including Olympic games, boxing matches, Superbowls, ballets, the Running of the Bulls, football and baseball games and even Bobby Fischer’s chess match against the Russian chess champion, Boris Spassky in Reykjavik.

Two of his favorite subjects were Muhammad Ali and Joe Namath. He also painted portraits of Sylvester Stallone as Rocky, and was given cameo roles in three Rocky films.

In 1986, Neiman and his wife, Janet, created the LeRoy Neiman Foundation to fund programs supporting and advancing arts education. Through their foundation, they created the LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University’s School of the Arts, the LeRoy Neiman Center for Study of American Culture and Society at UCLA, and a UCLA LeRoy Neiman scholarship.

In 2010, Neiman had his right leg amputated as a result of arterial insufficiency. He continued to paint. He died in New York on June 20, 2012 at the age of 91. He was survived by his wife.

LeRoy Neiman’s work is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian, the Whitney Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the State Hermitage Museum in Russia, Wadham College at Oxford and in museums and art galleries the world over, as well as in many private and corporate collections.