Beschreibung:

The Temporary Champion, 1967 Felt pen on translucent paper Signed "By Muhammad Ali, The Real Champion, July 21, 1967" Framed This drawing was done for an article in Avant Garde magazine, 1967. Ali provided commentary to the works included in the article and about this work, he said This picture shows the next temporary champion, if he will be black, being carried out on the shoulders of whites, outside the Astro Dome, and two little Negro children are on the side, standing behind thousands of whites who don't have time for them or don't recognize them - little dirty, raggedy children - and they see the champion picking up the little white girl and it hurts the little colored girl because she remembers the last time Muhammad Ali was at the Astro Dome and he was picking up on one of his and her own kind. So now she feels left out and she's just saying in the picture "If that was Muhammad Ali, he would have picked me up". Exhibited: Muhammad Ali: World Premier Art Exhibition, Roseland Grand Ballroom, New York, January, 1979. Provenance: From the Collection of Rodney Hilton Brown, formerly President of Hilton Fine Arts, Ltd., publisher of Muhammad Ali's limited edition silkscreen prints, 1978. Literature: Avant Garde magazine, Issue One, January, 1968 (illus.) BROWN, Rodney Hilton, Muhammad Ali: The Untold Story: Painter, Poet & Prophet, Fairhaven, MA: The War Museum Press, 2021, p. 39 (illus.) Frame: 25 1/2 x 29 1/2 in.