Son of Daily News Artist Bruce Stark Continues “Family Business”

"Robinson Going Home," an original oil painting by artist Ron Stark, whose professional art career did not begin until he was in his 30s.

On Sundays during the summer of 1973, The Daily News published full-page color caricatures by artist Bruce Stark. Each week, thousands of kids (and adults) across the New York metropolitan area looked forward to seeing which Yankee and which Met would be featured.

Players like Mays and Murcer, Seaver and Stottlemeyer, Nettles and Fregosi, Munson and Grote. The list went on and on.

One 10-year-old living in Northern New Jersey at that time didn’t need to pick up a copy of the Sunday paper to see the work of this legendary artist working at the largest newspaper in the world. Ron Stark — who was already impressing his classmates with his cartoon-style sports drawings — grew up surrounded by the work of his well-known father.

“My dad’s work hung on our rec room walls. What a source of inspiration for a young child,” recalls the younger Stark, now 47, and well-known in the world of baseball art for his realistic paintings of some baseball’s greatest players.

Stark has become known for his life-like portraits of players such as Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Ty Cobb, Josh Gibson, Jackie Robinson and others. He shudders at the thought of being called a photorealistic artist — probably because his paintings convey so much more life and realism than a typical photograph ever could.

In the painting “Going Home,” Stark depicts Jackie Robinson pausing to study a baseball while packing his leather satchel. Stark’s tight brushwork skillfully leads the viewer’s gaze around the painting  – from Robinson’s pensive visage, to the seam of the ball, the open bag, and the well-worn cleats still on his feet. Robinson’s career was one of the most storied in the history of the sport, and Stark captures emotion and history from that career in a single frame. The Robinson painting is one of Stark’s recent works, and is one of his favorites.

Most of Stark’s work is from days gone by, partly because Stark likes the idea of baseball being played for the love of the game. “Nostalgia and I seem to go together for some reason,” said Stark. “My mind wants to believe that there was a more innocent time in America’s game, more down to earth.  For some reason that idea appeals to me, whether it was actually true I don’t know.” Not surprising then, that one of the few current MLB players to come off Stark’s easel is Yankees captain Derek Jeter.

Unlike many other artists painting baseball today, Stark manages to come up with compositions you won’t see in any coffee table book of photographs. Although he’s willing to take a commission for a piece done from a recognizable image, most of his paintings are poses or compositions that fans have never seen before.

Joe DiMaggio sits pensively on the top step of the dugout. Original painting by Ron Stark.

Some of Stark’s other personal favorites include Gehrig standing on the dugout in his away uniform, the painting of Dimaggio sitting almost profile on the steps with the ’39 patch, Williams later in his career holding his glove, and the one of Negro Leagues catcher Josh Gibson. Interestingly, Stark feels that the best pure portrait he’s ever done is of basketball great Bill Russell.

Stark grew up a Yankees fan, and whether playing sports, watching sports or daydreaming about sports, the sporting world consumed him. His dad had press access, working for the Daily News, so for a young sports fan, it was a “privileged existence,” he recalls. “Locker room and field access, how many kids have that?” He fondly remembers sitting courtside, with “feet on the hardwood,” during Knicks games during the 1970 season.

In his younger days, Stark’s ability as an artist took a back seat to his talent as an athlete. Hockey was his favorite sport, but he excelled on the diamond — and went on to play baseball at Emerson Jr/Sr High in New Jersey,  four years more years at Messiah College in Pennsylvania, and some semi-pro ball later on.

Despite Stark’s obvious artistic talent, there was a time when he did not think he would pursue an art career. Growing up the son of a well-known professional artist, “the visual stimulation was constantly in front of me, but I remember when I was approaching high school age that I made an unconscious decision that I could never compete with my dad’s success.” Stark decided at that point that he would be “anything but an artist.  It took until my early 30′s before I would shake free of that.”

Stark says his father didn’t want to push him into becoming an artist because, “quite frankly it is not a career for the faint of heart.  I marvel today at the way he was able to handle the deadlines and pressure of producing good art on a daily basis for at the time the largest newspaper in the world.  Now freelance artists such as myself have other pressures and I think dad wanted to spare me of all of that.”

When asked to describe his technique, Stark hesitates. “This is a hard question because with most things I consider myself to be logical and analytical in my approach, yet with my art I cannot tell you how I arrive where I do. Chalk it up to lack of formal art education. I’m a grad of the Bruce Stark School of Visual Art and Hard Knocks.”

Artist Ron Stark

As an artist, Stark says he does not intentionally limit himself to just one sport. “Baseball has the tradition, and of course, the clientelle in the memorabilia field, so naturally a lot of my focus is there.  It would be wonderful to paint some old time hockey players in those colorful jerseys or even football, but the money seems to be in the grey baggy flannels, which is okay, because I really do love baseball and its history the most.”

Stark says his favorite players of all time are Shoeless Joe Jackson and Josh Gibson. “Both of these guys had hardscrabble lives and careers, and they played in eras or circumstances that were less polished and more raw.  I think I’m drawn to tragic figures.  Frankly, I love all the deadball and Negro league players for those reasons.”

When questioned about the future, Stark says he has no specific goals. “My personality doesn’t tend toward specific goal setting, mostly I just want to keep getting better,” he said. “That is what drives me.  I believe in the idea that my focus should be not on things out of my control such as success in the art world, but rather on striving for excellence, which is something I can always influence.”

Stark remembers with amusement what turned out to be his first paid gig.  “I had been sending out samples of my drawings and got a call from a fairly small publishing house wanting a book cover painting of Knute Rockne, with a four-week deadline.  I politely declined saying that I don’t do color. I hadn’t painted since 10th grade art class.  After hanging up the phone, I wondered if my dad could give me a few quick lessons, and being desperate, called back and confidently said that I’m the man for the job.  Got it done and I was on my way to being a working artist, thanks mostly to God’s grace.”

Stark believes he has benefited from years he spent early on honing his drawing skills. Afraid to get into color in the early part of his career, he became a master of drawing. He advises up-and-coming artists to learn to draw really well before beginning to paint.

Today, Stark lives in Florida with his wife and four kids. He has become a big fan of the Florida Gators, and whichever other teams his kids root for. You can visit Stark’s website to see more of his work. His paintings are also available as giclees (digital prints) on canvas.

This summer marks the release of the postage stamp he designed.

In Kentucky, a three-year, national art tour of his work continues at the Louisville Slugger Museum. Included are 33 original paintings and several sketches from his award-winning 2008 book, now a staple of public and school libraries.

And then there is the Shades of Greatness exhibit, currently in Boston. It contains three paintings that are in his book.

Artist Kadir Nelson

Growing up, Kadir Nelson played baseball for only two years. And he has never considered himself more than an October baseball fan.

But through brush strokes and words penned with an old man’s resonance and young man’s enthusiasm, the 36-year-old artist and author has become a major contributor to a game that was known as the National Pastime even when the game mirrored national injustice and divide.

Nelson, illustrator and author of “We Are The Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball”, first turned baseball into art in 1996, when, as a student, he was commissioned by a private collector to do a painting of Negro League stars Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson.

“That piece was the beginning of my learning about the Negro Baseball Leagues,” Nelson said recently from his San Diego studio.

There’s really no way to calculate the hours of research he has logged since then.

But Nelson is quick to credit sources, from Ken Burns’ 18-and-a-half-hour, nine-segment, 1994 documentary, “Baseball”, which devoted most of one segment to the Negro Leagues; to the work of noted Negro League author John Holway. And then there are Nelson’s own one-on-one interviews with former Negro League players Monte Irvin, Buck O’Neil, Walt McCoy and former all-time Major League home run champion Hank Aaron.

Aaron, who played briefly in the Negro Leagues, provides the foreword to “We Are The Ship”, concluding he wouldn’t have made it in baseball had not the legends of the Negro Leagues paved the way for him.

One legend is O’Neil, who helped found the Negro Baseball Museum in Kansas City and who, before his death in 2006 at the age of 94, sat with Nelson at a game in which the San Diego Padres honored the Negro Leagues.

“For me, it was like talking to your grandfather,” Nelson recalled. “He was very fun. He had great stories. He was very charming. I really admired him. I felt honored and blessed to have time with him.”

Young fans carrying the equipment of Willie Foster, with hopes of seeing the day's game.

“We Are The Ship”, which contains 50 Nelson paintings, 41 done specifically for it, was an eight-year labor. With records sparse, he devoted much time to trying to get enough information to make his paintings historically accurate.

“Each painting was like a puzzle – ages, heights, weights… Were they righty, lefty? What did the baseball uniform look like? The color of the field?” Nelson said, explaining, when team and player materials could be found, most often things were in black and white.

Where he could, of course, he gathered first-hand information. But time was of the essence, with O’Neil advising him during their talk, “Get it now”.

“I was really trying to finish all of these paintings for former players to enjoy,” Nelson said. “They are really up in age and we’re losing many every year. The longer I took to do the book, the fewer who could enjoy it.”

“We Are The Ship” won critical acclaim among reviewers. But perhaps more meaningful to Nelson has been the positive response from the men who lived the Negro Leagues.

Irvin, the five-time Negro League and one-time Major League All-Star voiced his approval.

Hall of Famer Dave Winfield, whose career began well after the Negro Leagues folded, sent McCoy an early copy of the book and, moved by it, McCoy, who lives in San Diego, appeared at Nelson’s door with flowers at Christmastime.

“I really love that,” said Nelson, who considers McCoy’s remembrances of 1940′s Negro League baseball invaluable to his book.
McCoy’s name certainly isn’t as well known as some Negro Leaguers. But the pitcher was good enough that he toured with Paige’s All Stars, competing in part against Bob Feller’s (Major League) All Stars. Besides pitching for the Negro League Chicago American Giants and Kansas City Monarchs, he also played in the Mexican Winte League, where he twice bested the Yankees’ Whitey Ford.

In McCoy, Nelson found someone who’d been there to see Jackie Robinson playing in the Negro Leagues. He’d also seen Josh Gibson, who some have characterized as superior to Babe Ruth.

The muscular catcher was known as both a defensive standout and as a player who hit for power and average. Hall of Fame pitcher Walter Johnson, who won more than 400 games and struck out more than 3,500 batters, is quoted in “We Are The Ship” as saying of Johnson, “He can do everything. He hits the ball a mile. And he catches so easy he might as well be in a rocking chair… Too bad this Gibson is a colored fellow”.

Josh Gibson was thought by some to have been an even better ballplayer than the great Babe Ruth.

Nelson made Gibson the cover of  “We Are The Ship”. Unsmiling, the sleeves of his Homestead Grays’ uniform shirt rolled up to reveal massive biceps and his hands tight around the handle of a bat, Gibson is an intimidating presence.

And that’s very much what he was during a career cut short. Gibson was 35 when he died of a stroke in 1947. Three months later, Robinson was playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers.

“If anyone deserved to play in the Majors, it was Josh Gibson,” Nelson said. “He represents both the tragedy and triumph of the Negro Leagues. It was a tragedy that so many were not able to play because they were banned. But it was a triumph that talented players and owners were able to create such a successful institution as the Negro Leagues.”

Of course, Negro baseball sprang up in the 1800s after Major League baseball owners came to what “We Are The Ship” refers to as an unwritten, “gentleman’s agreement” to ban black players.

“I think it (playing in the Majors) gave them a taste of the life of being a professional baseball player. That doesn’t really go away,” Nelson said. “There was a lot of great baseball talent on the loose. They wanted to continue playing. Their love of baseball really fueled them.”

That love extended beyond the ballplayers to the fans who kept Negro League Baseball going until about 1960, when all Major League baseball teams were integrated. (In 1959, the Boston Red Sox became the last team to integrate.)

Pittsburgh Crawfords owner Gus Greenlee.

But there were also the owners, the colorful and not so, who paid the bills and did their best to put on entertaining, talent-filled contests. With many careers off limits to them because of skin color, some, like Gus Greenlee of the Pittsburgh Crawfords, who Nelson paints sitting at a table full of change, financed their team by running illegal numbers games.
Negro League owners didn’t have the national public profile of the Yankees’ Jacob Ruppert or, in later years, Walter O’Malley, whose Brooklyn Dodgers finally integrated Major League Baseball with the addition of Robinson.

But Nelson shines a decades-later light on owners like Greenlee, Abe and Effa Manley of the Newark Eagles, Cum Posey of the Homestead Grays and others.

The others include Andrew “Rube” Foster. A former pitcher, the Chicago American Giants’ owner and manager founded the Negro National League in 1920 and served as its president. In 1981, 51 years after his death, Foster was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame..

Foster, who is prominent in “We Are the Ship”, makes up on one panel of Nelson’s two-panel U.S. postage stamp, the other panel showing a player beating a throw home.

Foster not only put a championship team on the field and formed a solid league but was an innovator, according to Nelson, developing the bunt-and-run, a play that, when executed correctly, resulted in the runner at first making it all the way to third.

The fact the play originated with the Negro Leagues surprised Nelson, but so, too, he noted, was the fact that shin guards, batting helmets and even night baseball were Negro League innovations, the Negro Leagues playing under lights as early as 1930, five years before the Major Leagues.

The biggest surprise to Nelson, though, was the leagues’ success.

“… The guys were able to take baseball all over the country and to many places over the world, sometimes to places the Major Leagues couldn’t go,” he said. “Sometimes they’d make a field and then play (on it) the same day. To me, it’s like a jewel of baseball talent that was able to carve out a piece of their own history.”

Indeed, the title of his book comes from a remark from Foster that goes, “We are the ship; all else the sea”.
To Nelson, the statement carries double meaning: Negro Baseball – the ship — was dwarfed by the vast sea of white baseball. At the same time, the ship was its own boss, free to move apart from the tide.

“I describe it as a declaration of independence from the Majors.,” Nelson said. “They were able to create their own avenues and navigate as they wanted to.”

Painting of hotel sign was a reflection of what it meant to travel as a Negro League ballplayer.

And Nelson tries to reflect the entire Negro League story in his paintings. He depicts the Manleys happily listening to their Newark Eagles singing on the team bus; Gibson watching Paige pitch to Buck Leonard, a Hall of Fame first baseman often compared to Lou Gehrig, before a packed house at Washington’s Griffith Stadium; little boys carrying the equipment of Foster’s pitcher-brother, Willie, (also a Cooperstown inductee) in the hopes of seeing the day’s game; Rube Foster’s team, dressed to impress and drawing looks of admiration exiting a train; and Paige pitching not at some makeshift sandlot field but at Yankee Stadium. But there’s also a sign for an inn advertizing Cabins For Colored, a reflection of what it meant to travel as a Negro League ballplayer, not to mention average African-American.

Nelson’s work doesn’t dwell much on what might have been but rather focuses on the wonder of what was.

“I looked at it like Buck looked at it,” Nelson said. “He said he had a great life. They had great lives. They were able to do what they loved to do. They had fun. They were free. They were popular with men and with women. It was almost like they were having the time of their lives.”

“My book is really a celebration of the history. They took something that was ugly – racism – and turned it into something beautiful.

That’s what the Negro Leagues represent to me.”

Dressed to impress, Rube Foster and his Giants teammates shortly after exiting a train.