The Conlon Collection by Dick Perez

Confluence Of Greatness
First there was Perez-Steele. Then the Hall of Fame. Next came Diamond Kings. And most recently, The Immortals.

Now, Dick Perez, the world’s preeminent baseball artist, unveils his most intriguing project to date: The Conlon Collection. Never before has this master painter—or, for that matter, any other sports artist—devoted himself exclusively and entirely to one photographer’s body of work. Yet here, in partnership with Legendary Auctions, Perez focuses his unique style and broad palette on none other than the greatest baseball photographer in history, Charles M. Conlon (1868-1945).

The unprecedented multi-year series presents an array of Perez’s freshly created artworks spanning Conlon’s three archetypal genres: Scenes, Portraits and Studies. From young Christy Mathewson practicing his wind-up at the Polo Grounds, to fierce Ty Cobb spraying dirt as he slashes into third base, to dough-faced Babe Ruth staring intently into the camera’s eye, this is baseball at its illustrious best. This is the Grand Old Game re-imagined anew. This is our National Pastime as iconically captured by Conlon…and provocatively transformed by Perez.

Parallel Lives
Forty years. That’s how long Charles M. Conlon and Dick Perez dedicated to perfecting their respective craft. Both artists began on unlikely career paths—Conlon as a copy editor, Perez an ad man—before each found his true calling. Even their origin stories are similar. An amateur shutterbug, the 35-year-old Conlon leapt at the chance to lug his bulky camera and trusty bag of glass-plate negatives for an impromptu photo session with the New York Giants. Conlon’s spellbinding images were soon published in the New York Telegram, Sporting News and Spalding Guide. Goodbye proofreading desk, hello darkroom.

By comparison, Perez, at age 32, was running a PR firm and moonlighting as an illustrator when opportunity came knocking in 1972. One of his business associates got hired by the Philadelphia Eagles and brought Perez on board to create, design and illustrate team yearbooks and brochures. Sure enough, the Phillies also needed an in-house (or in-stadium, as it were) designer/portraitist for their promo materials. First stop Philly, next stop Cooperstown, where Perez held the prestigious role of Hall of Fame Officlal Artist for over two decades.

Yet still more comparisons may be drawn between these two masters:

Both have been published in card sets.

• In his day, Conlon’s images graced Exhibit and Goudey cards, Kashin premiums and team cabinets. In the modern collecting hobby, a collaboration between Megacards and The Sporting News resulted in the popular 1991-1995 Charles Conlon TSN card series.
• Perez-Steele Galleries singlehandedly invented the limited-edition art-card industry with such revered issues as Hall of Fame Art Postcards (1980), Great Moments (1985), Celebration (1989) and Masterworks (1990). Additional Donruss/Topps sets from the 1980s-1990s included Diamond Kings, Grand Champions, Gallery of Stars, Masters of the Game and Sluggers.

Both have been published in books.

• Conlon first gained prominent attention with the groundbreaking 1993 release of Neal and Constance McCabe’s coffee-table book, Baseball’s Golden Age: The Photographs of Charles M. Conlon. An acclaimed 2011 sequel, The Big Show, expanded on Conlon’s oeuvre.
• In 2010, Perez produced one of the most lavish art tomes ever to hit sports shelves at bookstores and libraries—The Immortals: An Art Collection of Baseball’s Best.

Both have been showcased in museums, galleries and esteemed private collections.

• Conlon’s photographic images abound at the Hall of Fame and virtually every other baseball history museum. The John Rogers Archive exhibited Conlon original photos at New York City’s Openhouse Gallery in 2011. And all significant private holdings of photographs prominently feature numerous Conlon classics.
  
• Perez’s portraits are equally ubiquitous at Cooperstown. He has also enjoyed solo exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (our nation’s oldest art museum and school), Bianco Gallery, Spectrum Art Gallery and Lafayette College, as well as participated in multi-artist exhibitions at the Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia Art Show, Brooklyn College Museum, Museum of Fine Arts of Puerto Rico and several others. Private holdings have included those of Major League franchises, corporations, charitable foundations, and fine-art collectors and sports collectors alike—among them, Ronald Reagan’s family and former President Bill Clinton.

Midas Touch
For Charles M. Conlon and Dick Perez, perhaps the most important testament to their cross-generational kinship lies in the Golden Age itself. Conlon visually defined baseball during that halcyon prewar era of Murderers’ Row and the Gas House Gang, when titans like the Bambino, the Iron Horse, Joltin’ Joe and Teddy Ballgame roamed stadium basepaths. Even today, Conlon’s photos remain the primary lens through which we view those epic years in the evolution of our National Pastime. Simply put: He reigns supreme as the Golden Age’s definitive documentarian of record.

Heir to Conlon’s throne, Dick Perez sparked a Golden Age renaissance in the 1980s and 1990s. At a time when young fans cared more about Rose than Cobb, more about Ripken than Gehrig, Perez elevated those early legends to the status of Olympian gods with his gorgeous Perez-Steele art cards. At a time when only historians and hobbyists concerned themselves with lesser-known Cooperstown enshrinees, Perez brought those forgotten heroes to the fore—indeed, burnished the luster of their legacies. What’s more, he leveled the playing field with his Donruss Diamond King sets, which bestowed the elegant tribute of Perez’s brushstrokes to contemporary stars—thereby sanctifying Brett, Winfield, Ryan and company as worthy successors to baseball’s elite Golden Age pantheon. Yes, long before Ken Burns built a cottage industry on the ghosts of baseball’s past, Dick Perez laid the foundation. And long before myriad baseball portraitists came to drink from the well, it was Dick Perez who blazed the trail.

Everything Conlon and Perez have ever touched has turned to gold. Now, it’s only fitting that the artistic riches of our Golden Age alchemists should be forever fused together in The Conlon Collection by Dick Perez.