An oil portrait of Muhammad Ali, painted in 1983 by art historian and dealer Robert Simon, carries Ali's own hand across its surface: a black marker signature and a message to friends that reads in part, "Service to others is the rent we pay for our room in Heaven... Enjoy life its later than we think," dated December 4, 1983.

Simon based the composition on Ali's 1974 Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year" cover, rendering the boxer in tuxedo and ruffled shirt, a red flower at his lapel. Simon himself is best known not as a painter but as the scholar who identified and brought to market Leonardo da Vinci's long-lost "Salvator Mundi," an account he later published with Oxford University Press. Ali, for his part, remains one of the most inscribed-upon and quoted athletes of the twentieth century, and the words he chose here, about service and urgency, echo the causes he championed off the canvas.

Work details

The painting measures 36 by 24 by 2 inches, weighs 4 pounds, and is presented in a black wood frame. It is a unique, one-of-one work, signed by Ali on the front. A certificate of authenticity is included, and shipping is arranged as part of the lot.

Proceeds from this piece benefit WhyHunger, an organization working to end hunger and support food justice through grassroots partnerships. Ali's own words of service find their payoff here, in a canvas that funds the same spirit he wrote into it.