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The Sweet Science :: Artist Tim Hooper

By July 20, 2011Art + Design
Charles Mitchell

Famed bare-knuckled fighter, Charles Mitchell, posing on a tree stump.

Boxer John L. Sullivan

Boxer Terry McGovern

Boxer Terry McGovern

From Tim Hooper’s Bio:

“I grew up in Nashville, TN in the ’70s and ’80s – a typical middle-class kid who watched way too much TV. My first artistic endeavors were drawing on the walls of my closet with a purple crayon, copying characters from the funny pages and rendering all four members of Kiss.

In high school, some kid brought a R. Crumb comic book to school. Crumb’s art had a huge impact on me and inspired me to become a cartoonist. I spent my twenties creating comics and trying to get them published (with little success). As I look back, drawing countless comic strips and teaching myself to draw was the best training I could have had.”

Tim was kind of enough to tell me the story behind his boxing paintings…

“I am attracted to a lot of vintage imagery and the boxers are sort of an extension of that. I am fascinated with the bare-knuckle fighters. It is as much their clothing, hair-cuts and mustaches as anything else. When you start thinking about what the sport was like in those days it is amazing that people participated. But then again, it probably tells us something about history, true hard times, and desperation.” – Tim Hooper

+ Source: Tim Hooper  / Etsy.com