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BY BILL BLEYER

Growing up in Brooklyn, Mort Künstler, like many kids, wanted to be a professional basketball player. And while he excelled in team sports through college, as a youngster he was frail and injury-prone. So he spent his recuperation time pursuing a secondary hobby: art.

Eventually, the limits of his stamina became apparent as did his limitless artistic talent.

Now, while Künstler is still a part-time athlete, many art experts and historians agree that the septuagenarian is America's foremost artist of historical subjects. And his dominance in his field is being celebrated by a one-man show that opens next Sunday at the Nassau County Museum of Art in Roslyn and runs through Nov. 12.

This will be the Cove Neck painter's second show at the museum. A 1998 exhibit focused on his recent specialty within the historical genre: the Civil War. It was the first time the museum had done a major exhibit on a historic event, and the 41,294 people who attended over six weeks set a weekly attendance record that still stands.

The new exhibit, "The American Spirit: Paintings by Mort Künstler," focuses on the full range of his historic subjects, from the Colonial period to the war in Iraq. It includes 108 paintings and 20 sketches from a lifetime output he calculates at more than 3,000 images.

In terms of contemporary American historical artists, "I think he's absolutely No. 1," said Franklin Hill Perrell, the museum curator who put together the show. "There has come to be almost a cult following for his art."

M. Stephen Doherty, editor of American Artist magazine, concurred in a biographical sketch he wrote for Künstler's latest book, "The Civil War Art of Mort Künstler." Doherty wrote, "Künstler is now known as America's foremost historical artist" and since the late 1970s "has been recognized as a distinguished fine artist."

And Harold Holzer, a historian and co-author of "Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: The Civil War in Art," said Künstler became the best of the artists who emerged in the late 20th century to resurrect the war as a subject "by being extremely accurate and being a real student of the war and by inserting genuine emotion. You get a sense of excitement and action."

There were early indications that Künstler might be the best.

For starters, "my last name means artist in German," he said. But more significant was the fact that "I was a real child prodigy. My parents recognized my talent at the age of 21/2. My sister was going to kindergarten and she would come home with art projects and I could copy her projects. I was sickly so my father, who ran a gym and was an amateur artist, encouraged me. I was in bed all the time so he bought me art supplies to keep me from being bored, and he'd set up still lifes for me. My mother used to take me to children's art classes at the Brooklyn Museum on Saturday mornings. So I knew I was going to be an artist," though he has a scrapbook of clippings about his prowess in basketball, football, swimming and track and field in high school and college.

Künstler's first professional assignment came in the early '50s when he was attending Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. His football coach at Brooklyn College, where he had previously attended, wrote a book on football and commissioned Künstler to do line drawings to illustrate it. "I got paid like $3 an hour," he said.

After graduating from Pratt, he got a job as an apprentice in an art studio for several months and then set out on his own as a freelance illustrator. After barely earning enough to survive the first year, he began doing covers for True, Argosy and other men's adventure magazines, including his first Civil War and other historical scenes. "I always had work," he said, doing 70 to 100 pictures a year. And the pay continued to get better and better, allowing his family to move to Massapequa in the mid-1950s and later to Oyster Bay Cove, and in the late '70s to the Cove Neck Gold Coast mansion overlooking Oyster Bay where he still lives.

In the mid-1960s, Künstler and his wife, Deborah, left Long Island for Mexico. But after living a laid-back though artistically productive life there for almost two years, Künstler came back to New York. He began what would ultimately become his specialty niche of historical topics by doing a series of freelance illustrations for National Geographic. "I loved doing the research," he said, and working with historians to obtain background. "I always had an interest in history," he added. "I always loved taking history courses at Brooklyn College."

Branching out

Still, in the mid-1970s, he decided to branch out beyond history by taking on advertising projects, Newsweek covers, posters for "The Poseidon Adventure" in 1972, "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" in 1974 and other films and even a Mad magazine cover: a 1976 parody of "Jaws" -- the original artwork is now owned by Steven Spielberg.

By the end of the '70s, he had made the biggest shift of his career by moving away from the financial security of commissioned illustrations to concentrate on fine arts paintings of historical subjects that he would paint for sale in galleries.

His first gallery show -- focusing on his work as an illustrator with works not for sale -- was in 1977 at the Daytona Beach Museum of Art. That fall, Hammer Galleries in Manhattan mounted the first show where his paintings could be purchased; 14 more one-man shows would follow there.

Like many important developments in his career, Künstler said, "it all happened by accident." He had walked into Hammer two years earlier with a painting of an American Indian scene under his arm that he was taking home to get framed. The gallery was planning a show of Western sculpture and needed a few paintings to flesh it out. Hammer decided to include several of Künstler's pieces in the show and "they sold them all within a week or so," he said.

His Civil War specialty also began by accident. "I didn't know anything about the Civil War at the time," he said, but in 1988 he was inspired to do a painting for the 125th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. He had no intention of doing more than the single Civil War image. But when he visited the Pennsylvania town, he wandered into an art gallery, introduced himself to the owner and was offered a very lucrative deal for turning his yet unpainted "The High Water Mark" into prints. The reproductions sold so well that he kept going. He has developed such a loyal following that when he goes to a gallery to sign his work, people have lined up for more than four hours to meet him.

Licensing deals

Along the way Künstler has evolved into a one-man conglomerate with vendors licensed to sell books, calendars, mugs and other collectibles. Keeping track of all the activity and operating his Web site (MortKunstler.com) requires a staff of four.

When he paints any historical scene, Künstler said, "I want it to be the most authentic and best one ever done of an event. I try to open up a window on the past for people so they will say to themselves, 'Gee, I feel like I'm there.'"

Civil War historian James I. Robertson Jr., the Alumni Distinguished Professor in History at Virginia Polytechnic and State University, who has collaborated with Künstler on three books, said the artist routinely accomplishes that goal. "He's so knowledgeable and gives so much attention to detail," Robertson said. "He's the premier Civil War artist of our time, if not of all time."

Künstler's attention to detail is apparent in a visit to his studio on the third floor of his home. It is awash in replicas of Civil War weapons, saddles and hats mixed with stacks of reference books and magazines to ensure every detail in a painting is accurate. In the midst of the clutter is his easel mounted on a 7-foot-diameter lazy Susan set up under four skylights so he can rotate the platform to maintain the natural lighting he wants. On the walls are autographed photos of Künstler with such luminaries as President Jimmy Carter and Sen. John Glenn and a blowup of his design for a stamp depicting Buffalo Soldiers -- black soldiers in the Indian Wars -- released by the U.S. Postal Service in 1994.

Whether he's painting the launch of the first space shuttle or a Civil War battlefield, Künstler visits the site where a painting will be set and takes photographs for later reference. And there is always copious correspondence with historians on minutiae such as the weather on the day in question.

The artist usually paints up to six major oil-on-canvas works a year along with smaller pieces and watercolors. Full-size original oils usually command between $50,000 and $100,000; but larger, more elaborate images can reach up to $250,000.

Like his idol, Norman Rockwell -- with whom Perrell says Künstler someday will be compared by art critics -- he said the principles that make his paintings effective are fairly simple: "Keep it simple, stupid. That's what it's about. Get the eye to go exactly where you want it to go and tell your story."

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