<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Hill, now a star with the Orlando Magic, hasn't just become a collector, but one who has amassed a museum-quality collection of American works, including pieces from renowned artists Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett and John Biggers. They're among the 46 paintings and sculptures in a new exhibit at Duke's Nasher Museum of Art, titled "Something All Our Own: The Grant Hill Collection of African American Art." "There are many successful, intelligent people who are interested in sports but not in arts and this is a chance to get them interested," says Kimerly Rorschach, director of the Nasher museum. The first piece the six-time All-Star bought for himself combined both basketball and art. Titled "Duke Fast Break," the print by Ernie Barnes, a former NFL player, featured Johnny Dawkins, Duke's associate head coach who played for the Blue Devils from 1983-1986. The 33-year-old forward remembers using his mother's credit card to buy the work, which featured Barnes' trademark elongated figures, made familiar by 1970s TV comedy, "Good Times." Hill doesn't remember what he paid for "Duke Fast Break," but imagines it wasn't too much since he was still in college. Hill credits his father with advising him while acquiring his art collection, which is much larger than the 46 pieces in the show. But Calvin Hill, whose own collection mostly features work by women from third-world countries, says his son's choices are his own. His only suggestion: Buy what you like, not just something that might increase in value. "I would say that each of these pieces reflects what he feels and how he feels," Calvin Hill says. "I've tried to suggest certain things to him, but it's him, not me." During a recent preview, Grant Hill discussed the pieces in his collection, which Rorschach said has a "stylistic continuity and story line." Hill described how each reminded him of a relationship or event in his life. Catlett's sculptures, he says, remind him of the strength and nurturing of black women, something brought home by the birth of his daughter. Says Rorschach of Hill's choices, "He clearly had a vision for his collection." Grant Hill's representatives and Nasher officials declined to discuss the value of the collection. But Ron Rhoads Auction reported that Bearden's "Woman With Greens" sold for $104,500 at a Feb. 4 auction. In 1998, a Bearden collage titled "Sunday Morning Breakfast" sold for $79,500. Catlett's sculptures sell in the $150,000 range, while smaller bronze pieces typically cost $30,000. Hill and his wife, Tamia, don't have room for all the art they own, and haven't figured out what to do when the show at the Nasher closes in July. It's the last stop on a tour of Hill's collection, which first appeared publicly at the Orlando Museum of Art and later in New Orleans, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston and the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. At each stop, Hill has invited inner-city students to visit the exhibit on a field trip, "understanding that not everybody will get it or understand it." He wants youngsters to know that art produced with marble and paint is as valuable as records set on the basketball court or inside a football stadium. "Not so much that everyone will want to become a collector or everyone will want to become an artist -- or anyone for that matter -- but that there's another way," Hill says. "I think it's important to have those examples." On the Net: Nasher Museum of Art: http://www.nasher.duke.edu</div> Source
