The competitive spirit, challenge, traditions and excitement of sport are epitomized in the oil and watercolor renderings of renowned American painter and illustrator Bart Forbes (1939-).

Forbes is a sought-after sports artist, working out of his studio in the Texas home he shares with his wife and two children. Having won 60 Awards of Excellence from the New York Society of Illustrators, he has been commissioned many times over by Sports Illustrated, Time magazine, Eastman Kodak, Pepsi-Cola, American Airlines and ABC Television. Named the 1986 Sports Artist of the Year by the U.S. Sports Academy, Forbes was selected by the Olympic Committee as the official artist for the 1988 Summer Olympics. The artist has designed over 20 commemorative postage stamps, including the Lou Gehrig and Jesse Owens commemoratives, "The Olympians" and the "America the Beautiful" series as well as commemorative posters for the Boston and New York Marathons, Indianapolis 500, America's Cup and 1994 Winter Olympics.

Although accomplished in rendering all sports, Forbes is perhaps best known for his golfing images and acclaimed for his portraits of history's thirty greatest golfers. Having done theme paintings for a variety of PGA and Seniors tournaments, Forbes recently completed the theme art for the 1994 Pebble Beach Pro-Am for the second consecutive year.

Forbes's works are in the collections of such notables as former Presidents George Bush and Jimmy Carter, the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, as well as Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicholas, the National Football League and The Smithsonian Institution.

View Bart Forbes Collection