ARTIST: Tom McNeely (Canadian, born 1935)
NAME: Bear Bryant
YEAR: 1997
MEDIUM: watercolor on heavy paper
CONDITION: Very good.
SIGHT SIZE: 21 x 18 inches / 53 x 45 cm
MAT SIZE: 28 x 24 inches / 71 x 60 cm
SIGNATURE: lower right
NOTE: This painting appeared on the Fleetwood First Day Cover of the 32c Bear Bryant stamp issued July 25, 1997. Born in Arkansas in 1913, Paul Bryant earned the nickname "Bear" as a teenager when he was offered a dollar a minute to wrestle a live show-bear. After graduating from Alabama, where he played right end on the Crimson Tide team that defeated Stanford in the 1935 Rose Bowl, "Bear" Bryant worked as an assistant coach at Alabama and Vanderbilt. In 1941, with World War II underway, he joined the Navy. When the war ended, Bryant coached at Maryland for one year, moving to the University of Kentucky in 1946. His Kentucky record over the next eight years was 60-23-5 and included three bowl victories. In 1954, Bryant went to Texas A&M where he suffered his first and only losing season. But over the next three years the Aggies lost just five games and won the 1956 Southwest Conference championship. Bryant returned to Alabama in 1958 to coach a floundering football team that had just completed its fourth losing season. Looming larger than life in his trademark houndstooth check porkpie hat, "Bear" quickly turned the Crimson Tide around, becoming Coach of the Year in 1961. A tough disciplinarian, Bryant was not afraid to bench his recalcitrant star, Joe Namath, in 1964, even though it meant a close call in Alabama's Sugar Bowl victory over Mississippi. "Bear" Bryant retired only a month before his death in 1983. He had won or shared six national championships, been honored as Coach of the Year three times, won 15 of 29 bowl game appearances, and earned an overall won-lost record of 323-85, with 17 ties.
PROVENANCE: Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation.
CATEGORY: old antique vintage painting for auction sale online
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BIOGRAPHY:
Born and raised a Cherokee, Sequoyah never spoke English, yet he watched in awe and wonderment as the white man looked at "talking leaves" and the leaves spoke to him. To be able to glance at a sheet full of another person's thoughts was like "catching a wild animal and taming it," he reasoned. He yearned to document his tribe's speech so that the leaves could speak to his people too. Sequoyah felt certain that this was the key to freedom from the white man. In 1809, Sequoyah tried representing tribal words with small animal figures and symbols, but the list grew hopelessly long. Next, he broke the words into syllables and designated symbols for each one. For twelve years he tirelessly labored toward his dream, often using a charred stick on a piece of bark as his writing tools. In 1821, he was ready to put his syllabary to the test. Men whispered a message to Sequoyah's child and the child wrote the message. Then, without faltering, Sequoyah read the message aloud. The skeptics were forever silenced. Soon, thousands of Indians mastered the eighty-six characters and could read and write. Sadly, despite this written language and Sequoyah's dream of freedom, white men still considered Cherokees as savages, to be relocated at their whim. Fortunately, today the Indian civilization is more highly regarded. In fact, the great Sequoyah is namesake to California's Sequoia National Park.