FryFest 2009
Coach Hayden Fry and Artist Jeff McNutt
FROM HERKY TO HAWKEYE EXPRESSIONISM by Marc Morehouse - Cedar Rapids Gazette
.An original painting titled Hayden Fry - “Game Face”, oil on canvas, 36” X 60” created by artist Jeff McNutt will be displayed at the Tradeshow in the Coralville Marriott during Fry Fest.
Jeff McNutt calls his art “Hawkeye expressionism.” If you’re into the Herky, you might call it really, really cool.
McNutt, 41, is the artist behind the Hayden Fry portrait for FryFest, which is this Friday in Coralville. This isn’t McNutt’s only Hawkeye-based piece of art.
There’s the Nile Kinnick painting that sold for $11,500 at Nate Kaeding’s golf event this summer. His work hangs in some of the Kinnick Stadium suites, including a “big man on campus” Herky. His “Hawkeye expressionism” first showed up at an M.C. Ginsberg sidewalk show in 2006.
“I came up with two pieces and went around to see if any gallery had interest. It was hard,” said McNutt, who’s married (Beth) with two sons (Carter and Sawyer). “There was one that was kind of interested, but because of the Iowa Hawkeye thing, they were kind of on the fence. They liked them, but …
“My last stop was M.C. Ginsberg’s. They said, ‘Yeah, these are really cool, Can you have 15 of them by the artist walk?’”
All but two pieces sold.
McNutt, who wore the Herky mascot head in 1987-88, graduated from Iowa with a business degree. He started training as an artist while on a college marketing internship at Walt Disney Studios. He moved from Los Angeles to Iowa City in 1993 and enrolled in the graduate painting program.
“I’m sort of like a goofball,” McNutt said. “I have a business degree and there’s a commercial side. I enjoy the Hawkeyes and most people in the art department loathe the Hawkeyes. My training has been in fine art and it’s not commercial illustration. My stuff is fine arty. It’s been a different gig.”
When the Kinnick press box was demolished, McNutt, a sale representative by day, pounced on the recyclables. He crushes the Kinnick brick into a pigment for color and texture in his oil canvas paintings. He also found some old bleacher planks that he also uses.
Through Dale Ahrens, the UI’s director of the hall of fame and licensing, McNutt contacted Kaeding. Among signed jerseys, golf carts and ultimate Hawkeye season pass packages, McNutt’s paintings went for the most at the charity auction.
He’s raised more than $21,000 for the Russ and Ann Gerdin Hope Lodge for cancer patients through donating paintings from 2007-09.
This led to the FryFest folks asking him to “do what he does.” The Fry portrait, which McNutt describes as “photo realistic,” also is donated.
“He is one of the most generous people I’ve met,” said Josh Schamberger, president of the Iowa City/Coralville Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, the organization hosting FryFest.
McNutt went through archives looking for a Fry image “that wasn’t seen over and over again, but at the same time was Hayden.
“I wanted to make it about him and have a ready-for-football thing,” McNutt said. “I referenced two or three different photos in the ‘80s. The painting ended up being just a straight on shot of him with his commander hat on and his sunglasses and he’s got this look, with the mouth kind of closed, like he’s getting ready battle.”
The original painting and a few prints will go into a silent auction that will be on display at the FryFest trade show, Friday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at The Exhibition Hall of the Coralville Marriott. Proceeds from the event will go toward the Coralville 4th Fest Committee for fireworks and Fourth of July celebrations.
The painting also has been turned into the official poster for the inaugural FryFest. They will be available for sale ($10) at the trade show and after at the Welcome Center of Coral Ridge Mall.