As part of the 1990 European City of Culture celebrations Jim Scullion devised the Sportart Exhibition which was sponsored by the Scottish Arts Council and Strathclyde Regional Council. The exhibition followed a year long series of art workshops run by Jim Scullion, with various members of the community. Within the workshops Jim exposed some of his trade secrets, and allowed the 3,000 plus participants to create their own masterpieces. At the end of the year over 200 paintings, illustrating over 90 sports, and created by Jim within the workshops went on display as the Sportart exhibition. The exhibition also displayed many of the paintings created by the workshop participants, alongside photographs and video from the workshops.

The Chairman of Celtic FC along with players from the club and an array of other sports personalities opened the Exhibition in Jim's Home town, Coatbridge in early 1991. In 4 weeks over 30,000 people had visited the Exhibition. This led to the demand for the Exhibition to tour.

Despite much interest from traditional galleries and Exhibition spaces in the City of Glasgow, Jim chose Parkhead Forge as the venue for Glasgow. The Forge was a recently opened indoor Shopping Mall and at the time was one of the largest of its kind in Britain. Jim felt that the ordinary shoppers who flocked to the centre were the type of people who would enjoy his work. This proved to be the case. The exhibition was opened on the 29th April 1991 and was due to run until the end of July, but due to public demand it ran until the end of September. The exhibition then toured both in Britain and abroad.

Such was the success of the exhibition the owners of the Forge contacted Jim in 1993 offering to sponsor another exhibition, and this led to the birth of the Football Mall of Fame Exhibition.