Dick Perez: Drawing Baseball’s Immortals

Dick Perez: Drawing Baseball’s Immortals

If we were to choose one person that best personifies the relationship between sports and the world of creative endeavors that Studio 602 champions, that person could well be Dick Perez.

Born in San Lorenzo, Puerto Rico in 1940, Dick Perez moved to New York City at the age of six. Then, at the age of 18, he moved to Philadelphia, where he attended the Philadelphia College of Art and the University of Pennsylvania. It is here that he honed is craft and it is here that he created his first ties to the world of baseball.

Today, Dick Perez is the most well known sports artist in the world and, even if you don’t recognize his name, any baseball fan is likely familiar with his work. In the 1980s and 1990s, his paintings appeared on the Donruss Card Company’s wildly popular “Diamond Kings” baseball cards, and he has been the official artist for the Philadelphia Phillies since 1972. Furthermore, he was the official artist for the Baseball Hall of Fame for over twenty years and, to this day, he paints a portrait of each new inductee. He has been a part of the world of baseball for nearly 40 years, and this artist shows no signs of slowing down.

Dick is currently creating paintings that will appear on cards released by Topps, but it is the book he released last year that has really been turning heads. The Immortals is a collection of over 1400 of Dick’s original paintings that chronicles every era in baseball’s long history. From the origins of the game and the “Dead Ball Era,” all the way into the present day, this 560 page treasury covers it all, and it does so in a variety of mediums, including acrylics, watercolors, oil, charcoal and ink. And, since everything has to have its Pencils.com twist, the collector’s edition of the book even comes with an original graphite drawing from Dick Perez himself.

Dick’s paintings aren’t just every-day pieces of art that are hung on the wall and left to collect dust without purpose. Sure, every painting Dick creates can be viewed as art for art’s sake, but they are really much more than that. Every painting Dick creates is a piece of history. Portraits of legendary icons and modern day heroes fill his portfolio. Paintings of baseball moments both real and imaginary occupy his gallery. Dick has given visual life to pieces of baseball’s history that were not captured in either still or moving pictures. He has immortalized players, managers and ballparks in acrylics, watercolors and oils and, in doing so, has immortalized the game of baseball itself.

Without Dick Perez, many of baseball’s icons would be confined to stats and stories. Through his art, however, we have been given the ability to visit the days of yesteryear and watch the greats play. How do sports and creativity go together, you ask? Just ask Dick Perez.

To see more of Dick Perez’s work, check out his gallery here. To purchase his book The Immortals, check out the official Web page here.