Baseball Art Historical Precision: Painter Graig Kreindler Sweats Details
Graig Kreindler
Banjo   Batboy Eddie Bennett (2010) ( Graig Kreindler)
Graig Kreindler  sweats  the details   as a researcher no less than as an artist.
‘I believe the lights were on ” wrote Bobby Thomson to Graig Kreindler  who was researching the Shot Heard Round the World  the storied walk-off home run that sent the New York Giants to the World Series five decades earlier.  Kreindler  knew that the sun was low in the sky behind first base and dimmed by dark clouds when Thomson came to bat a few minutes before 4 p.m. on October 3  1951  at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan.
Was it hard to see the ball? Or did the Giants turn the lights on  if only for the primitive TV cameras  there to capture the deciding game of the first baseball series ever broadcast live to a national audience? From the grainy black-and-white film and photos   Kreindler  couldn’t tell  and newspaper accounts were silent on the question. So he asked Thomson  half-expecting either no response or an autographed souvenir from a retired player trained by experience to assume that a personal letter from a stranger must be fan mail.
Even if Thomson hadn’t hedged his answer   Kreindler  would have counted it for what it was: a datum  good to have but not dispositive. He reasoned that the slugger was “in a tight situation”: the tying run on second  the National League pennant on the line  half a city’s hopes pinned on his shoulders. “Does he even notice the lights? I mean  why would he?” After weighing the probabilities  Kreindler  an artist who paints old-time baseball  went ahead and made the banks of rooftop lights glaring  adjusting the shades and shadows on the canvas accordingly.
Ballparks are treated to the same loving scrutiny. Did Bobby Doerr by any chance remember the colors of an ad  for Gem razor blades  on the left-field wall at Fenway Park in 1939  his third of 14 seasons with the Boston Red Sox? He did not  he regretted to report  on the back of a three-by-five-inch index card 70 years later  when he was in his 90s.  Kreindler  realizes that the strangers from whom he seeks information about light or color at the ballpark during a particular hour or season in baseball antiquity are liable to find his questions bizarre. Do they think he’s nuts? A few might; not all reply. He asks anyway.
Peter Fiore  his former teacher and enduring mentor and friend  was taught by an artist who was taught by . . .  Kreindler  traces  his  professional lineage back to the father of American illustration  Howard Pyle (1853–1911). The seriousness of  Kreindler ’s artistry is easy to miss because of  his  subject matter and manifest love for it. Prize committees may have a bias for the brazen or edgy  but to convey warmth and uplift the viewer is no less an achievement  a marriage of vision and discipline.
“Art critics might scoff at what we do and consider it kitschy ”  Kreindler  acknowledges  referring to the small fraternity of baseball artists  several of whom  he  touts and cites as helpful influences  including “obviously Norman Rockwell ” although you won’t always find a conspicuous resemblance between their work and  his . “I like to think I bring something different to this ”  he  says. “I don’t expect my work ever to hang in major museums  but it could  in theory.”
Forty years after his death  Rockwell  mocked and dismissed by the cognoscenti in his lifetime  is revered as an American master by connoisseurs and critics in and out of the academy. The Guggenheim and the Museum of Fine Arts  Boston  have exhibited his work. If the tastemakers ever likewise catch up with  Kreindler   the baseball historians and fans who got there first will rise from their catbird seats behind home plate and make room for them  under the lights.
Banjo   Batboy Eddie Bennett (2010) ( Graig Kreindler)
[TGT]sweats  the details   as a researcher no less than as an artist.
‘I believe the lights were on ” wrote Bobby Thomson to Graig Kreindler  who was researching the Shot Heard Round the World  the storied walk-off home run that sent the New York Giants to the World Series five decades earlier.  [TGT]knew that the sun was low in the sky behind first base and dimmed by dark clouds when Thomson came to bat a few minutes before 4 p.m. on October 3  1951  at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan.
Was it hard to see the ball? Or did the Giants turn the lights on  if only for the primitive TV cameras  there to capture the deciding game of the first baseball series ever broadcast live to a national audience? From the grainy black-and-white film and photos   [TGT]  couldn’t tell  and newspaper accounts were silent on the question. So [TGT] asked Thomson  half-expecting either no response or an autographed souvenir from a retired player trained by experience to assume that a personal letter from a stranger must be fan mail.
Even if Thomson hadn’t hedged [TGT] answer   [TGT]would have counted it for what it was: a datum  good to have but not dispositive. [TGT] reasoned that the slugger was “in a tight situation”: the tying run on second  the National League pennant on the line  half a city’s hopes pinned on his shoulders. “Does [TGT] even notice the lights? I mean  why would he?” After weighing the probabilities  [TGT]  an artist who paints old-time baseball  went ahead and made the banks of rooftop lights glaring  adjusting the shades and shadows on the canvas accordingly.
Ballparks are treated to the same loving scrutiny. Did Bobby Doerr by any chance remember the colors of an ad  for Gem razor blades  on the left-field wall at Fenway Park in 1939  his third of 14 seasons with the Boston Red Sox? He did not  he regretted to report  on the back of a three-by-five-inch index card 70 years later  when he was in his 90s.  [TGT]realizes that the strangers from whom [TGT] seeks information about light or color at the ballpark during a particular hour or season in baseball antiquity are liable to find [TGT] questions bizarre. Do they think he’s nuts? A few might; not all reply. [TGT] asks anyway.
Peter Fiore  his former teacher and enduring mentor and friend  was taught by an artist who was taught by . . .  [TGT]traces  [TGT]  professional lineage back to the father of American illustration  Howard Pyle (1853–1911). The seriousness of  [TGT] ’s artistry is easy to miss because of  [TGT]  subject matter and manifest love for it. Prize committees may have a bias for the brazen or edgy  but to convey warmth and uplift the viewer is no less an achievement  a marriage of vision and discipline.
“Art critics might scoff at what we do and consider it kitschy ”  [TGT]acknowledges  referring to the small fraternity of baseball artists  several of whom  he  touts and cites as helpful influences  including “obviously Norman Rockwell ” although you won’t always find a conspicuous resemblance between their work and  his . “I like to think I bring something different to this ”  he  says. “I don’t expect my work ever to hang in major museums  but it could  in theory.”
Forty years after his death  Rockwell  mocked and dismissed by the cognoscenti in his lifetime  is revered as an American master by connoisseurs and critics in and out of the academy. The Guggenheim and the Museum of Fine Arts  Boston  have exhibited his work. If the tastemakers ever likewise catch up with  [TGT]the baseball historians and fans who got there first will rise from [TGT] catbird seats behind home plate and make room for [TGT]  under the lights.