Olympiads artist Leroy Neiman dies age 91 He has been described as an American impressionist, but the St. Paul, Minnesota, native preferred to think of himself simply as an American artist. "I don't know if I'm an impressionist or an expressionist," he told the AP. You can call me an American first. ... (but) I've been labelled doing neimanism, so that's what it is, I guess. He worked in many media, producing thousands of etchings, lithographs and silk screen prints known as serigraphy. But Neiman's critics said his forays into the commercial world minimised him as a serious artist. At Playboy, for example, he created Femlin, the well-endowed nude that has graced the magazine's Party Jokes page since 1957. Neiman shrugged off such criticism. "I can easily ignore my detractors and feel the people who respond favourably," he said. Neiman was fascinated with large game animals and said he twice travelled to Kenya to paint lions and elephants "in the bush" in his trademark vibrant palette. But it was the essence of a basketball or football game, swim meet or cycling event that captured his imagination most. "For an artist, watching a (Joe) Namath throw a football or a Willie Mays hit a baseball is an experience far more overpowering than painting a beautiful woman or leading political figure," Neiman said in 1972. With his sketch book and pencil, trademark handlebar moustache and slicked back hair, Neiman was instantly recognisable. At a New York Jets game at Shea Stadium in 1975, fans yelled, "Put Leroy in," when the play wasn't going their way. Neiman's decades-long association with Playboy began in 1953 following a chance meeting with Hugh Hefner. It was the start of what he called "the good life" and inspiration for much of his future work. He regularly contributed to the magazine's "Man at His Leisure" feature, which took him to such places as the Grand National Steeplechase and Ascot in England, the Cannes Film Festival in France and the Grand Prix auto race in Monaco. Neiman was a World War II veteran who participated in the invasion of Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He was a self-described workaholic who seldom took vacations and had no hobbies. He worked daily in his home studio at the Hotel des Artistes near Central Park, which he shared with his wife. "What else am I good for?" he said in 2008. I don't think about anything else. One of his projects, a 160-foot long sports mural, hung in the Sports Museum of America in Manhattan. Neiman also was a portraitist who captured some of the world's most iconic figures, Frank Sinatra and Babe Ruth among them, in a style that conveyed their public image. "I am less concerned with how people look when they wake," he said. A person's public presence reflects his own efforts at image development. One face he recorded over and over again was that of Muhammad Ali. Those paintings and sketches, representing 15 years of the prizefighter's professional life, permanently reside at the Leroy Neiman Gallery at the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville, Kentucky. Over the years, Neiman endowed a number of institutions, donating $6 million in 1995 for the creation of the Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University and $3 million to his alma mater, the Art Institute of Chicago, where he taught for a decade. He also donated $1 million to create a permanent home for Arts Horizons, a community art centre in Harlem. Neiman earned numerous accolades. He was inducted into the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame and the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Other awards included a 2002 Friars Club Tribute and a 2004 Ellis Island Medal of Honor. His works are in the permanent collections of many private and public museums. The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., was selected by Neiman to house his archives. "I just love what I do," Neiman told the AP. "I love the passion you go through while you're creating" and the public's "very thoughtful and careful studied and emotional reaction of what you're doing." He added: "It's a wonderful feeling." Neiman is survived by his wife of 55 years, Janet Byrne Neiman.