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Scrimmage: Football in American Art from the Civil War to the Present

Warrington Colescott (American, born 1921)
Sunday Service from the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Portfolio, 2001
Hard-ground, soft-ground and aquatint on paper, 22-1/2 x 31-1/8 inches (image)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Janet Ann Bond Sutter and Thomas Henry Sutter

Scrimmage: Football in American Art from the Civil War to the Present

July 30, 2016 to December 31, 2016

Scrimmage: Football in American Art from the Civil War to the Present investigates the history of football imagery by prominent American artists and photographers beginning with Winslow Homer’s engravings for Harper’s Weekly at the close of the Civil War and culminating with the work of contemporary artists such as Catherine Opie and Shaun Leonardo. The artworks, which represent a variety of media including prints, paintings, sculpture, photographs and video, attest to the fact that football has played a significant role in American cultural history for the last 150 years. Scrimmage is the first scholarly exhibition to survey football imagery in depth and to demonstrate that a multitude of artists have made important images of this quintessentially American sport.

An illustrated catalogue published by the JSMA with interpretive essays by curators Frickman and Knapp, and contributing writers Albert Bimper, Robert Gudmestad, and Michael Oriard, as well as a selected illustrated checklist with artist biographies written by three recent M.A. Art History graduates (Lindsay M. Keast ’14, Stephanie Dunn ’15, and Christie Hajela ’15), will accompany the exhibition. Scrimmage is co-organized the Colorado State University Art Museum, Fort Collins, CO; co-curated by Linny Frickman, Director, Colorado State Universty Art Museum, and Danielle Knapp, McCosh Associate Curator, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art

Scrimmage: Football in American Art from the Civil War to the Present is supported by RBC Wealth Management; the Coeta and Donald Barker Changing Exhibitions Endowment; the Oregon Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the University of Oregon Office of Advancement; Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation; Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation; FUNd Endowment at Colorado State University; the Lilla B. Morgan Memorial Fund; City of Fort Collins Fort Fund and Cultural Resources Board; and JSMA members.

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