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Sports

Baseball and Art Mix at Gallery Exhibit

Painter Paul Lempa is showing his baseball player portraits at Gallery 1200.

The city known as a birthplace of baseball has a new art exhibit that celebrates the game's most iconic faces, thanks to Gallery 1200 hosting a solo show of works by painter Paul Lempa.

The gallery's director, local artist , said that she often walks past the Washington Street plaque that demarcates the Elysian Fields, the now-paved over park where two teams played what historians recognize as the first modern baseball game on June 19, 1846.

“With the anniversary coming up I thought it would be nice to bring that history back to Hoboken through art,” Meyerson said.

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Meyerson met Lempa recently through a mutual friend and invited him to exhibit his work, which is the first solo show Gallery 1200 has had since it opened last September at 1200 Washington Street.

Lempa, who was born in Bayonne in 1970, said he became a baseball fan as a child while watching Yankees games with his father.

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“I think from my earliest recollection watching games that I definitely had that love for baseball,” he said.“

During his childhood Lempa also practiced drawing. “When I was a kid I would draw the Sports Illustrated cover every week. That's when sports and art first came together for me,” he said.

Lempa later had a career as a graphic designer. A visit to a baseball art exhibit in 2003 inspired him to try his hand at painting. He started first by painting baseballs and later graduated to larger canvases. His work has since hung in museums, competitions and on Topps baseball cards. He was also profiled on ESPN.

He has 21 paintings in the current exhibit at Gallery 1200, ranging in size from 6x8 to 30x40, and in price from $850 to $6,000.

His paintings feature legends like Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams and Jackie Robinson. Yankees fans would also recognize pinstriped greats Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, C.C. Sabathia, Curtis Granderson and Hall of Fame centerfielder Earle Combs. Lempa said his painting of Combs, the lead-off hitter for three World Series winning teams, is based on a famous photo.

“You're in the dugout looking out at the umpire, catcher and batter who are all in the same plane, in unison looking at the ball in play. There's a real ballet to it,” Lempa said.

Lempa said watching baseball continues to inspire him. He said the mention during a televised baseball game of a player he's never painted before might spark his interest enough to take on the challenge.

That challenge involves not only mastering a technical proficiency, but also creating a compelling image.

“The trouble with painting icons is that people are so familiar with these guys,” Lempa said. “You don't want to paint something people have seen a thousand times. I'm trying to put these icons in a new light to give people something interesting to look at.”

Lempa said he tries to distinguish his works with an attention to detail. He said he does meticulous research both on the internet and in his library of over 300 books about baseball.

“I want to be as accurate as I can, so that people would notice it if they were actually there, and if not so they can really feel like they were,” Lempa said.

For example Lempa said he paints historic crowds differently then contemporary ones because people visiting the ballpark then wore heavier clothes in muted tones. He said that painting current players has a unique difficulty because he wants to get correct details that are constantly changing, such as the advertisements lining an outfield wall.

Lempa said he will spend the near future painting baseball players for commissioned projects, but that after that he would like to return to Gallery 1200 with a series on football.

Meyerson said the gallery will unveil one more of Lempa's works on May 20, a 16x40 rendering of the Elysian Fields. The rest of Lempa's works will be on display until June 23.

 

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