The Male Nude in Sports

The principle of achieving excellence through physical strength in peaceful competition has endured for millennia in History.  The creation of competitive games held at Olympia in ancient Greece every four years, has evolved out of its ancient roots to our own age, when the Olympic Games were re-born in 1896 as the Games of the Olympiad in Athens, with 14 countries sending athletes to compete in summer sport events. Since then, the Olympic Games have matured and expanded over the 20th century, with Summer and Winter Olympiads attracting dozens of nations and hundreds of athletes excelling in ancient and contemporary athletic events of startling diversity.

DIVERSITY is the guiding principle that prompted Olympic champion Tom Waddell, a gay man, to create the first GAY GAMES in 1989 as a way to provide the international community of LGBT amateur and professional athletes alike (and non-gay participants) with a quadrennial Olympiad of its own.  This year, GAY GAMES 9 was held in the Cleveland-Akron area  August 9th -16th 2014 –a triumph for our region, beating out Washington DC and Boston for hosting honors.

We are delighted and proud to mount our exhibition featuring the works of two esteemed contemporary American artists whose careers have focused on depicting and interpreting the power and beauty – KALOS in Greek -- of the male body. 

Ohio sculptor CAMPBELL PAXTON is internationally known for his wry, elegant sculptures and reliefs with powerful references to Classical Greek and Roman mythology, Renaissance art, as well as commentary on contemporary gay life.  Museums including the Morgan Library, NYC and international collectors own Paxton bronzes and polymer figures. 

Florida painter RON GRISWOLD offers a large group of very recent paintings and drawings focused on nude male athletes frozen for a moment during sporting activity and at rest, both.  Griswold’s art is widely collected nationally and internationally.  KALOS marks the artist’s first Cleveland exhibition.