The Mob Museum in Las Vegas is hosting its first fine art exhibition with 13 portraits of organized crime figures and law enforcement officials created by artist LeRoy Neiman.
The collection includes 10 mixed media works on paper created for the museum from 2009 to 2011 but never exhibited. The portraits feature likenesses of Meyer Lansky, John Gotti, Bugsy Siegel, Mickey Cohen, Albert Anastasia, Frankie Carbo, "Machine Gun Jack" McGurn, Arnold Rothstein, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Al Capone's 1928 Cadillac.
Bugsy Siegel is one of the mobsters featured in the exhibit "Art of the Mob: The LeRoy Nieman Portraits" at the Mob Museum Photo Credit: LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation
Donated by the LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation, these artworks will become a part of the museum's collection. Three earlier works -- portraits of John Dillinger, Al Capone and Frank Costello -- will be on loan from the foundation for the exhibition.
"Neiman died [in 2012, the year the museum opened] before having the opportunity to gift the works on paper to the museum himself, but more than a decade later, the LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation is pleased to do so in his honor," said Tara Zabor, executive director of the foundation.
Vegas connections
Neiman, best known for his colorful depictions of sports figures and sporting events, was a frequent visitor to the city and was commissioned to create art for the poster for its centennial celebration in 2005. That oil work, "Celebrating 100 Years of Neon," and his interaction with then-mayor Oscar Goodman, the museum's chief proponent, led Neiman to create the portraits.
LeRoy Nieman's portrait of Meyer Lansky was created for the Mob Museum at the request of then-mayor Oscar Goodman in 2005. Photo Credit: LeRoy Neiman and Janet Byrne Neiman Foundation
"LeRoy Neiman's distinctively bold and energetic style is perfectly suited to portray the most notorious crime figures of 20th-century America," said Geoff Schumacher, the museum's vice president of exhibits and programs.
"Art of the Mob: The LeRoy Neiman Portraits," will be displayed through the end of the year in on third floor of the downtown museum.