Lou Grant is an African American artist who lives and works in Harlem. His series of portraits of baseball players
remembered reflects the spirit of another time. Grant, a talented baseball player himself, first attended Negro
League games as a child in the late 1930s and 1940s. He recalls that baseball games were a community event
and families put on their finest clothes and packed picnics for Sunday double-headers. Players were idealized
figures and fans followed their careers as they moved from team to team in the Negro Baseball League and, in
later years, into Major League baseball. Grant attended the High School of Art and Design and Cooper Union for
the Advancement of Science and Art in New York City, and is still a Dodger fan.