LeRoy Neiman was — more than anything — a businessman.  He knew how to make money with bright colors and call it “art.”  I don’t really consider LeRoy a True Artist — and I don’t think he did, either — because he was sort of cynical about the Art Game and he played the corners and surrounded the edges of the business of squeezing as much profit as possible from his palette of colors.  He was more publisher than painter.  More printmaker than trailblazer.  Yesterday, LeRoy Neiman died rich at age 91, and the Art community is left behind to struggle with the aftermath of his legacy of commerce over providence and the fact of how the bottom line can mockingly override original intention.

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