BERNIE CASEY (1939 - 2017)
Some of my Best Friends.

Oil on cotton canvas, circa early 1970s. 914x610 mm; 36x24 inches. Signed in oil, lower right.

Provenance: private collection, Massachusetts.

While best known as a television and movie actor and a NFL football player in the 1960s and 70s, Bernie Casey was also a talented fine artist. Casey showed his paintings of surreal and abstract compositions in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including two solo exhibitions at the Ankrum Gallery, Los Angeles and two at the John Bolles Gallery, San Francisco.

Born in Wyco, West Virginia, Casey received both a BA and MFA in Fine Arts from Bowling Green State University. He also served on the Board of Trustees at the Savannah College of Art and Design for over 20 years. His paintings are found in the permanent collections of the Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles, the Beverly Hills Library and the Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, DC. Lewis/Waddy p. 123.