Basketball and Barkley Hendricks: The Lesser Known Work of an Influential Artist

Breaking the rules always came easy to Barkley L. Hendricks. One of the most influential artists and photographers of the 20th century, he was best known for his portrayal of everyday black life in the United States. He often eschewed convention and experimented with shapes and space in his works unlike anyone had before him.

But his most significant departure from the norm was in the subjects he chose to paint.

They were his neighbors, friends and strangers set against bold backdrops in works that might not have seemed out of place among centuries-old European portraits. Hendricks was a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1960s and took a trip to Europe to study European masters, like Paul Cézanne and Rembrandt, and was dismayed to find a dearth of black subjects, so he painted his own.

His style combined the techniques of the old masters with his own abstractions in an effort to bring to life a vibrant black America. By doing so, he set the stage for several notable contemporary artists, such as Kehinde Wiley and Mickalene Thomas. He died in 2017 at 72.

“It was very impactful because African-Americans and people of color and people who seemed to be pushed out of the elitism of the art world could see themselves in a museum for the first time,” Trevor Schoonmaker, the director at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art, said in an interview. Schoonmaker worked with Hendricks extensively beginning in 2000, including curating shows featuring the artist.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/sports/Barkley-Hendricks-jack-shainman-gallery.html