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Jimmy Connors

Jimmy Connors
Usage Conditions Apply
Artist
Ross Barron Storey, born 1940
Sitter
Jimmy Connors, born 1952
Date
1975
Type
Painting
Medium
Acrylic on canvasboard
Dimensions
Board (Verified): 67.6 × 50.2 × 2.5 cm (26 5/8 × 19 3/4 × 1")
Frame (Verified): 76.2 × 59.1 × 3.8 cm (30 × 23 1/4 × 1 1/2")
Topic
Equipment\Sports Equipment\Tennis racket
Jimmy Connors: Male
Jimmy Connors: Journalism and Media\Broadcast journalist\Sportscaster
Jimmy Connors: Sports and Recreation\Athlete\Tennis
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Time magazine
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Copyright
© Ross Barron Storey
Object number
NPG.78.TC856
Exhibition Label
Born East St. Louis, Illinois
When Jimmy Connors burst onto the pro tennis scene in 1972, he quickly shattered the game’s time-honored decorum with brash, bad-boy behavior that led Time magazine to dub him “The Hellion of Tennis.” But while Connors’s court antics and temperamental outbursts proved offensive to many, his skills with a racket were undeniable. Combining quickness, power, and enormous competitive drive with a double-fisted backhand, devastating ground strokes, and a great service return, Connors became the dominant men’s singles player of the mid-1970s. Only twenty-one when he won his first U.S. Open championship, he would capture a total of five U.S. Open singles titles between 1974 and 1983, along with two Wimbledon singles crowns. Ranked among the world’s top ten players for sixteen years (1973–88), Connors was still competitive at thirty-nine, when he made it to the semifinals of the 1991 U.S. Open.
Collection Description
In 1978, Time magazine donated approximately eight hundred works of original cover art to the National Portrait Gallery. The museum is dedicated to telling the stories of individuals who have shaped the United States, and the Time Collection—featuring prominent international figures and events—enriches our understanding of the United States in a global context.
En 1978, la revista Time donó a la National Portrait Gallery cerca de 800 obras de arte originales creadas para sus portadas. Nuestro museo se dedica a narrar la historia de figuras que han contribuido a forjar el desarrollo de Estados Unidos, y es así que la Colección Time, que incluye retratos de importantes personalidades internacionales, nos ayuda a comprender mejor a nuestra nación en un contexto global.
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Exhibition
Champions
On View
NPG, South Gallery 342 Mezzanine