The first Art commission I ever had was to paint 2 portraits for the foyer of the Lads Club Boxing club in Norwich - Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali). The portraits were 5’x4' on either side of the foyer door.Ali and Liston had signed up for the fight just before Xmas 1963. The whole world was up for this with Liston being the unbeatable mountain and Ali the young contender. In 1964 Ali beat Liston and history turned. It was hoped that Ali would visit the Lads Club and in 1971 he did.
When Esquire magazine put the world’s most famous and controversial athlete “dressed” as St. Sebastian, the third-century Christian martyr, on their front cover, it was seen as both a stroke of genius and an obvious creative move.
At the time, Ali had already been stripped of his heavyweight boxing title and denied a license to fight after refusing to be drafted into the Army — a ban that lasted from 25 until he was almost 29, the prime time of a boxer’s physicality.

This, coupled with Ali’s conversion and affiliation with the Nation of Islam, made white America deeply suspicious of the champ.