A Street Artist’s Portrayal of Larry Bird Will Get a Makeover After the NBA Legend Complained That He Doesn’t Actually Have All Those Tattoos

When a
mural of Basketball Hall-of-Famer Larry Bird popped up on the side
of an Indianapolis multi-family home, it was meant to be a tribute
to the Indiana native and local hero. Instead, the mural had Bird
chirping foul.

The problem? A tattoo snafu.
Street artist Jules Muck’s
well-intentioned portrayal of Bird presented the clean-cut,
high-scoring forward sporting tattoos on every appendage, including
an image of a cardinal—Indiana’s state bird—tattooed on the now
62-year-old’s face as if he were about to drop a trap
album. Among the other
tattoo offenses were two rabbits mating on Bird’s forearm, a
shamrock (go Celtics), and a spider web. 

Unamused, Bird’s reps instead
quickly reached out to Muck see what could be
done. 

“He doesn’t have any problem
with tattoos. He just doesn’t want to be seen as a tattooed
guy,” Bird’s lawyer, Gary
Salle, told the Indianapolis Star, explaining that the Boston Celtics player had
overcome many struggles through his life, including an impoverished
childhood and the suicide of his father, and wanted to maintain his
hard-fought image. 

Muck was commissioned by the
building’s owner to paint the mural and says her intention was
never to offend Bird.

“I wasn’t trying to make a
prestigious fancy piece,” Muck told local news outlet WISH 8 TV.
Her depiction of Bird
is based on a photograph from a 1977 cover shoot for
Sports Illustrated,
which shows the then 21-year-old
basketball prodigy donning his powder blue Indiana State basketball
jersey with his index finger raised to his mouth in a “sssh”
gesture. The story was headlined, “College Basketball’s Best Kept
Secret.” 

After a series of texts and
phone calls, Muck agreed to remove all the tattoos but one: the
word “Indiana” which appears on his left arm. “I just wanted to
have a little fun,” she told the Indianapolis
Star.

The post A Street Artist’s Portrayal of Larry Bird Will Get
a Makeover After the NBA Legend Complained That He Doesn’t Actually
Have All Those Tattoos appeared first on artnet
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