Tennis legend John McEnroe recently donated a 1976 Andy Warhol portrait of himself with his former wife Tatum O'Neal to Sotheby's, which sold for £241250.
It’s been a pleasant surprise to how that McEnroe shares a passion for art. "It was really my friend Vitas Gerulaitis who got me looking. He was four years older than me, someone I looked up to," McEnroe explained in an interview. Gerulaitis introduced him to photorealism (Chuck Close, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, and Tom Blackwell).
McEnroe’s first rapport with art was also prompted by Gerulaitis who introduced him to the SoHo galleries and clubs like Studio 54, where he became acquainted eminent artists like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, Keith Haring, Eric Fischle (who exchanged his art with McEnroe for tennis lessons in 1992), and Francisco Clemente.
McEnroe prefers “art with energy”: a work which vividly reflects manual skills. He now owns a notable collection of art works. In 1993, he unveiled his own gallery on Greene Street.
"I always liked it when people called me an artist on the court," McEnroe says. "It was as if they were saying my style was something they couldn't really relate to and they had to look at the game through me."
