Jim RidlonMixed media and collage painting art pieces created by the United States Sports Academy’s 1989 Sport Artist of the Year Jim Ridlon will be on exhibit at the New Woodstock (N.Y.) Free Library from Tuesday, 1 December 2020 through the end of January 2021.

Ridlon is an internationally recognized artist who has exhibited around the world. He has works in the collections of the Everson Museum of Art, Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute and scores of others. He was named the Academy’s Sport Artist of the Year in 1989 and has completed commissions for the Walt Disney Corporation, ABC Wide World of Sports and ABC’s Monday Night Football. Ridlon was also a defensive back for the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers and Dallas Cowboys in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ridlon worked together with fellow New York artist Alyson Markell to develop the show, titled “Equine Expressions,” which features works capturing the distinct movements and physical characteristics of horses.

Collage painting is a technique developed by Ridlon in the 1980s that begins with hand painted sheets of paper that are torn into small pieces and are then collaged onto canvas. The mixed media pieces begin with a digital image, which Markell manipulates, and together the artists translate it into a mixed media work. Ridlon and Markell have merged their distinct skills and forms of expression to produce unique collaborative works.

A percentage of proceeds from the exhibit will benefit the New Woodstock Free Library.

The American Sport Art Museum & Archives (ASAMA) on the Academy’s Daphne, Ala., campus is home to 33 of Ridlon’s famous assemblages documenting NFL football. The series was previously housed at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, before being donated by Ridlon to ASAMA. The works commemorate the 25th anniversary of “ABC’s Wide World of Sports” television series.