Putting Up Your Dukes

The Norton Museum of Art puts on the gloves for an inspiring show it has mounted about the art of, and about, boxing

By David Masello

A group of Palm Beach senior citizens was ready for a fight when they visited the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach. They had come to see an ongoing show there of seascape paintings by Sorolla. But when Arden Sherman, the Norton’s Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, graciously welcomed them and offered to also show them through another exhibition that had just opened in November, “Strike Fast, Dance Lightly: Artists on Boxing” (through March 9, 2025), they rebelled— peacefully but vocally.

Fletcher Martin, Down for the Count, 1936–1937. Oil on canvas, 29 3⁄4 x 47 1⁄2 in. Framed: 38 x 56 x 2 1⁄2 in.
Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Gift of Mari and James A. Michener, 1991.264 © artist or artist’s estate

“I don’t want to see anything violent,” Sherman recalls one of the people saying, while many others voiced wholesale disinterest in the sport of boxing. “I emphasized to them that this show of ours was special, that it wasn’t at all about violence. Rather, it’s about life.”

Roy F. Lichtenstein, Sweet Dreams Baby!, 1965. Screenprint on heavy smooth white woven paper, 37 5⁄8 x 27 5⁄8 in.
Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts, Gift of Dr. Joseph Clive Enos II, 2010.69 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein

Upon leading the group through the show of 110 artworks by more than 80 artists that Sherman had assembled, the responses had changed. When they had seen the works by artists who include Edward Hopper, Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein, Alison Saar, Herman Bas, Katherine Bradford, and even a drawing by Muhammad Ali of a boxing ring, they were, collectively, as Sherman says, “Ecstatic.” So taken were they with the show that they later sent Sherman a bottle of Champagne as thanks for the special private tour. Unlike the winners of a boxing match, Sherman was not doused in the bubbly.

Even for those who have no interest in sparring or witnessing knockouts

George Bellows, Club Night, 1907. Oil on canvas, 43 x 53 1⁄8 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, John Hay Collection, 1982.76.1, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington

in the ring, going at punching bags or lacing up a pair of gloves, the show is a knockout. As Sherman explains, two other museums were concurrently configuring a show about the sport just as she was—the New York City–based FLAG Art Foundation and The Church (in Sag Harbor, New York). For years, Sherman had been collecting imagery of boxing for a potential show, long prior to assuming her current curatorial role at the Norton. “For years, I kept noticing that so many artists were depicting imagery of boxing,” she says. “I was seeing references to boxing gloves and fighting imagery when I visited artists’ studios, art fairs, exhibitions around the country.”

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