Paul Milosevich

33rd Ryder Cup Portrait:
Painter's Newest Canvas

By David R. Holland, Regional Staff Writer

Paul Milosevich, a Colorado-born artist, has always said you don't have to go to the Grand Canyon to find something to paint -- all you have to do is step out your back door. When he stepped out his back door as a child he saw the Trinidad Municipal Golf Course.

His love of art and golf has brought many opportunities, but the most recent is a real prize. Ryder Cup Captain Ben Crenshaw has commissioned Milosevich to do the official portrait/poster, which will be mailed to every golf course in the country sometime in early September.

“As soon as the team is named I can finish it,” said Milosevich. “That should be the middle of August. There will be 12 guys on the team with Crenshaw sitting in the middle holding the Ryder Cup. Ben wants it to be done in a 1920s style and design.”

Crenshaw also wants the ghostly figures of Francis Ouimet and his caddy Eddy Lowery “lurking” in the background of the poster. In 1913, as a 20-year-old unknown, Ouimet defeated British legends Harry Vardon and Ted Raye on his way to a victory in the U.S. Open at Brookline Country Club in Brookline, Mass. That’s the site of this year’s 33rd Ryder Cup scheduled for September 21-26.

Milosevich dated his first golf portrait on June 7, 1950. It was of Ben Hogan, his hero, and 37 years later he had Hogan autograph that very first portrait. And now 49 years later, one of his most recent golf portraits is of Gene Sarazen, just months before he died this year.

“The art shows how he looked back in the 1930s in the Masters,” Milosevich said. “I got to present it to him and he actually autographed quite a few copies for me.”

Even Kevin Costner, star of the golf movie Tin Cup, knows of Milosevich’s golf art and the producers of the show asked permission to hang his “Golf Widows” calendar on a set to be used in the movie. Milosevich said he went to see Tin Cup the day it opened, but was enjoying the comedy so much he forgot to look for his calendar.

“Warner Brothers was real excited about my "Golf Widows" calendar and sent me a check for $200 to use it as a set decoration,” Milosevich recalled. “I sent a calendar to Costner at the time they were filming near Houston.”

Milosevich’s art work has appeared in his own book Texas Golf Legends and also Southwest Art Magazine, Golf World, Golf Illustrated, Gulf Coast Golfer, Golf Houston, and Golf Digest (Japan). Other publications include "Out of the Ordinary" and "The Art of Paul Milosevich."

Now Milosevich is a transplanted Texan. He was an art professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas from 1970 to 1975, and he continues to live in that West Texas city. He says he never took an art class until college, but his eyes were opened wide by Arthur Mitchell, an artist in Milosevich's home town of Trinidad.

“Mitchell was the first professional artist I ever met," said Milosevich. "I was 22 and I'll never forget a workshop he gave. He pulled out a Saturday Evening Post magazine with one of his illustrations in it, then he pulled out the original painting, which was a lot bigger and much more colorful. That painting showed a Mexican vaquero on horseback reaching down for his rifle.” Milosevich had found his life’s work.

Being in Texas naturally drew Milosevich into another art interest -- country music. In 1975 he was asked by the Songwriters' Hall of Fame to do portrait drawings of the annual inductees. His first was of Jimmy Rodgers. Later the art included Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Chuck Berry, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams and Kris Kristofferson. He has done more than 80 Hall of Fame celebrity portraits.

Tom T. Hall, a country music legend, kept Milosevich busy when he first started working in the Nashville music scene. He did more than a dozen paintings for Hall, including an album cover.

Lubbock also celebrates an annual Buddy Holly Week and he has also been commissioned to paint a portrait of Buddy Holly.

Milosevich was inducted into the West Texas Walk of Fame in 1996 and his next project after the Ryder Cup portrait will be Texas Tech men’s and women’s basketball posters as the teams begin a new era in 1999 moving in to a brand new $52-million United Spirit Arena.

“I never know what my monthly paycheck will be,” he said. But with his paintings hanging all over the world, needless to say he’s done OK.

His collections are displayed at the Museum of the Southwest in Midland, Texas, the Nashville Songwriters' Hall of Fame, the U.S. Golf Association Museum in Far Hills, N.J., The Ben Hogan Company in Fort Worth, the Texas Golf Hall of Fame, at the PGA offices, the LPGA offices, the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio and at Walt Disney Productions in Orlando, Florida.

You can reach Milosevich at Box 6671, Lubbock, TX 79493 or check out his website at http://interoz.com/gallery/MILO1.HTM to see some of his work.