THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER ARTIST GERMAIN GLIDDEN SEES BEAUTY IN SPORT AND STARTED A MUSEUM TO DISPLAY IT

If there is truth to the classical notion that the human body is
the source of all beauty, then there is a natural marriage
between sport and art. At least that is the thinking of Germain
Glidden, a Harvard-educated artist and former U.S. squash
champion who, in 1959, founded the National Art Museum of Sports
(NAMOS). "If you study the history of art from just about any
period, there's an immense emphasis put on the portrayal of the
human body," says Glidden. "And in my mind, nothing accents the
human body more than sports."

The gallery Glidden began in his house now fills 10,750 square
feet on two floors of a building in downtown Indianapolis. It
includes more than 1,000 works, and this year it will attract
more than 150,000 visitors. Last month NAMOS unveiled its most
ambitious exhibit, a 40-year retrospective of work by the
illustrator Donald Moss. "People come here not quite sure what
to expect," says Ann Rein, the museum's administrative director,
"but they are amazed that so many significant artists have done
renderings in sports."

While the works in the collection share the fairly narrow theme
of sports, the games represented range from football and
baseball to ice yachting and a permutation of tennis called
"hard rackets." No less eclectic are the media used to portray
them. For instance, adjacent to a large tapestry celebrating
Inuit games stands a seven-foot bronze statue of former Boston
Celtics star Bob Cousy, sculpted by Stanley Martineau in 1963 on
commission from former Celtics owner Walter Brown.

The museum fulfilled a dream for the 82-year-old Glidden, whose
identity was always equal parts athlete and aesthete. As a
senior at Harvard in 1935-36 he was the national and collegiate
squash champion and the captain of the Crimson tennis team. He
also served as the drawing and cartoons editor of the Harvard
Lampoon, and after graduating with a degree in fine arts, he
enrolled at the Art Students League of New York. At night he
exchanged paintbrush and oils for a squash racket, and he
defended his national title in 1937 and 1938. "Being an athlete
and an artist," Glidden says, "I kept thinking, Why not put
these two universal languages together?"

He committed himself to promoting art through athletics and
athletics through art. "Finances kept me from becoming a rabid
collector," says Glidden, who has made a modest living as an
artist, "but I got pieces whenever I could and worked hard
myself at painting athletes, both in action and in portraits."

The first piece Glidden acquired remains one of his favorites: a
1909 tempera painting by Peter Helck of a tire-changer during
the Brighton Beach, N.Y., 24-hour auto race. Slowly Glidden's
collection outgrew the studio in his Norwalk, Conn., house. He
was granted a charter from New York State for a nonprofit
sports- art museum in 1959, and three years later NAMOS mounted
its first exhibit, at Madison Square Garden. After that the
collection moved to the University of New Haven, before taking
up residence at Indiana University-Purdue University at
Indianapolis in 1994. The works on display there include five by
Glidden himself.

If the founder has one criticism of the sports-art movement, it
is that too few women are portrayed. "Because of the history of
sports, until recently there were far more male athletes than
female," says Glidden, a widower who has three daughters, four
grandchildren and a great-grandson. For now, though, Glidden is
about to unveil a painting of George Bush, which was
commissioned by Bayard Sharp, a friend of Glidden's from their
prep school days at Exeter. The portrait shows the former
president pitching horseshoes, playing tennis and golf, and, as
the captain of the Yale baseball team, chatting with Babe Ruth.

"People who want to start museums are either millionaires, or
they're crazy about what they're doing," Glidden says. "Let's
just say I'm not a millionaire."

COLOR PHOTO: CRAIG BLANKENHORN At 82, Glidden (with his new portrait of Bush) still possessesa full palette of squash shots.[Germain Glidden with portrait of George Bush and other works of art]