From revolutionizing portraiture to redefining the nude, Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017) is rightly known among the foremost American figurative painters of the late 20th century. Yet his six-decade artistic oeuvre encompasses not only large-scale canvases of distinctively dressed (or undressed) individuals, but also includes evocative landscapes, hard-edged geometric abstractions, lush watercolors on paper and singular photographs informed by his studies with Walker Evans. This definitive volume spans all aspects of the artist’s practice––probing his photographic experimentation as a forbear to contemporary street photography; celebrating his great sensitivity as a colorist whose unique expertise seamlessly combines oil-based and water-based pigments to evoke time and place; highlighting the observational genuineness in his provocative and personal interpretations of women, of unapologetically visible queer identities, and of his own beloved black communities across the African Diaspora. Socially urgent and aesthetically powerful, Barkley L. Hendricks is lavishly illustrated by dozens of previously unpublished works.
Original texts from contributors allow for the critical proximity of scholars who called Hendricks a friend: art historian Dr. Richard Powell (Duke University) and Trevor Schoonmaker (Director, Nasher Museum of Art); those for whom he was a living inspiration: fashion designer and curator Duro Olowu and Dr. Zoé Whitley (Director, Chisenhale Gallery); and ushers in new discursive perspectives from award-winning graphic novelist and Professor John Jennings (Media & Cultural Studies, University of California, Riverside) and independent curator and writer Susan Thompson (formerly of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum). Like Hendricks himself, this highly anticipated catalogue is deeply researched, multifaceted, insightful, and surprising. Readers who think they know the totality of Hendricks will be left in no doubt of his expansive uniqueness and yes, his peerless acuity as a portraitist.
