This exceptional oil was composed by one of America's most popular artists, LeRoy Neiman. Neiman has long been celebrated for his electrifying paintings and illustrations of athletes and celebrities in vibrantly hued settings. He also composed electrifying nudes for Playboy magazine, including this racy, violet-infused illustration. Half shrouded in shadow, the raven-haired beauty gazes out at the view unabashedly in a pose that is both sensual and tantalizing. It was his images for Playboy such as this that first made Neiman famous - ultimately, he would contribute to the magazine for over 50 years.

Born in Minnesota in 1921, LeRoy Neiman long considered himself an illustrator; his first job as a teenager was, in fact, illustrating signs for a local grocery store. After serving briefly in the military in Germany, he returned to the Midwest to study at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he eventually became a teacher of illustration. It was in the early 1950s that he would meet a man who changed the trajectory of his career - Hugh Hefner. Shortly after he published his first five issues of Playboy magazine, Hefner invited Neiman to contribute an illustration to the publication, beginning a relationship that would endure for more than half a century.

His success with Playboy allowed him to branch out as an artist in his own right, and he soon became the de facto artist of the world's most famous sports stars and entertainers. His subjects included the likes of Mickey Mantle, Muhammad Ali, Sylvester Stallone and quarterback Joe Namath, as well as Olympiads and major sports teams from around the country. Heralded today as the Norman Rockwell of the postwar era, Neiman remains among the most beloved American painters of his age, and today his works are included in dozens of museums around the world.