Althea Gibson (born 1927)
In 1955, Althea Gibson almost retired from tennis. Had she done so, she would have denied herself her greatest moments. Two years later, this "jumping jack of a girl," who started her career playing paddle tennis in New York's "Harlem," was claiming both the British and United States singles titles. In the wake of those victories, a commentator ventured that Gibson was "not the most graceful figure on the courts." But grace was not the point. Clearly, at age thirty, she was at the top of her game, and she remained there the following year when she repeated her British and American triumphs.
The African American Gibson had encountered a good deal of discrimination in the overwhelmingly white world of tennis, and there was sometimes a "defensive truculence" in her play that doubtless reflected that. But, by the time Boris Chaliapin painted this grinning image of her for Time's cover in the summer of 1957, success had had its relaxing effect. Although she was still only grudgingly tolerated in some tennis circles, that no longer seemed to matter much.
Boris Chaliapin (1904-1979)
Gouache and pencil on board, 1957
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution;
gift of Time magazine
Back to list of portraits
Back to American Women introduction
