Boxed: A Visual History and the Art of Boxing

The person who wrote the first review has it all wrong. It is an ART book/Coffee table book. It literally says "A Visual History of Boxing". The book has detailed and thoroughly researched timeline about pugilism and how artists have used boxing as a metaphor and inspired them to make art based on Boxing - Presenting Boxing as true Art Form. Its unfortunate the other reviewer does not know or understand the art world. The book contains images going back to early Grecian Olympiads, Early English Bare Knuckle Fighting to Pop Culture. It also comments on Racism in Boxing. Images from movie clips/posters inspired by boxing and rare photographs of Jack Johnson, Corbett, Dempsey and Sugar Ray Robinson, etc. Lastly, it includes intimate and portraits of famous boxers and a section dedicated to the legendary Gleasons Gym in Brooklyn, Not to mention a section of images of Championship hand crafted belts by Sartonk. Artwork by Art stars Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Claus Oldenburg and others.... This book isnt about recent boxing famous boxers and their matches. If you want that, just go to You Tube and watch replays of Ward v.s Gatti. If you appreciate the Sweet Science and the Squared Circle. This is a great and well made book published by Damiani. One of the best in the business.

Bought this as a Christmas for my dad who has been a boxing official for decades. I didn’t get very far into the book after he opened it. It starts with archeological finds of the origins of boxing and has great photos of old professional fight posters, pictures from within the ring of famous fights and even cool art exhibits involving boxing apparatus/fighters. Pretty cool. I’d say it’s a pretty good gift for any boxing enthusiast in your life. Dad seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

The good: there are a handful of photos that make this not a total loss. The bad: both author/editors are from the art world, with no apparent interest in boxing. The book is mostly focused on artistic representations of boxing (paintings, sculpture, exhibitions), most of which had little artistic significance. Aesthetically, the book is not well done either; there is a huge amount of whitespace that is utilized poorly, and the layout appears sloppy overall. There is virtually no editorial content to contextualize the visuals, whether it is historical photographs, portraits, exhibitions, or paintings. For example, full-page photo portraits of Mickey Ward and Arturo Gatti are displayed on opposite pages (at least they got that right; it would have been awful to miss that opportunity, though it is missed nearly everywhere else). Their names are cited, but no mention is made of the fact that these men had a legendary series of fights that ultimately resulted in them becoming lifelong friends and training partners, and defined their careers. The sad epilogue of Gatti's life is not mentioned, nor anything of Ward's story, whose details were entertaining enough to have made a successful film. This book consistently fails to provide that kind of context which makes the images on the page more meaningful. For artistic photographic depictions of fighters, I would recommend Nicolai Howalt's work. There are also some nice portraits in Ben Watts's Big Up, mixed with a lot of street culture. I'm still looking for a photographic history of the sport of boxing, which I had hoped this book would be.

The person who wrote the first review has it all wrong. It is an ART book/Coffee table book. It literally says "A Visual History of Boxing". The book has detailed and thoroughly researched timeline about pugilism and how artists have used boxing as a metaphor and inspired them to make art based on Boxing - Presenting Boxing as true Art Form. Its unfortunate the other reviewer does not know or understand the art world. The book contains images going back to early Grecian Olympiads, Early English Bare Knuckle Fighting to Pop Culture. It also comments on Racism in Boxing. Images from movie clips/posters inspired by boxing and rare photographs of Jack Johnson, Corbett, Dempsey and Sugar Ray Robinson, etc. Lastly, it includes intimate and portraits of famous boxers and a section dedicated to the legendary Gleasons Gym in Brooklyn, Not to mention a section of images of Championship hand crafted belts by Sartonk. Artwork by Art stars Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Claus Oldenburg and others.... This book isnt about recent boxing famous boxers and their matches. If you want that, just go to You Tube and watch replays of Ward v.s Gatti. If you appreciate the Sweet Science and the Squared Circle. This is a great and well made book published by Damiani. One of the best in the business.

Bought this as a Christmas for my dad who has been a boxing official for decades. I didn’t get very far into the book after he opened it. It starts with archeological finds of the origins of boxing and has great photos of old professional fight posters, pictures from within the ring of famous fights and even cool art exhibits involving boxing apparatus/fighters. Pretty cool. I’d say it’s a pretty good gift for any boxing enthusiast in your life. Dad seemed to enjoy it quite a bit.

The good: there are a handful of photos that make this not a total loss. The bad: both author/editors are from the art world, with no apparent interest in boxing. The book is mostly focused on artistic representations of boxing (paintings, sculpture, exhibitions), most of which had little artistic significance. Aesthetically, the book is not well done either; there is a huge amount of whitespace that is utilized poorly, and the layout appears sloppy overall. There is virtually no editorial content to contextualize the visuals, whether it is historical photographs, portraits, exhibitions, or paintings. For example, full-page photo portraits of Mickey Ward and Arturo Gatti are displayed on opposite pages (at least they got that right; it would have been awful to miss that opportunity, though it is missed nearly everywhere else). Their names are cited, but no mention is made of the fact that these men had a legendary series of fights that ultimately resulted in them becoming lifelong friends and training partners, and defined their careers. The sad epilogue of Gatti's life is not mentioned, nor anything of Ward's story, whose details were entertaining enough to have made a successful film. This book consistently fails to provide that kind of context which makes the images on the page more meaningful. For artistic photographic depictions of fighters, I would recommend Nicolai Howalt's work. There are also some nice portraits in Ben Watts's Big Up, mixed with a lot of street culture. I'm still looking for a photographic history of the sport of boxing, which I had hoped this book would be.