Barkley L. Hendricks – Birth of the Cool.

Sir Charles (Willie Harris), 1972
Oil on canvas, 84 ¼ x 72 inches

Birth of the Cool
Exhibit Catalogue (Available at Amazon)

Misc. Tyrone (Tyrone Smith), 1976.
Oil and magna on linen canvas, 72 x 50 ¼ inches

Barkley Hendricks
Standing next to Misc. Tyrone at the Nasher Museum
(Image via Independent Weekly)

Blood (Donald Formey), 1975
Oil and acrylic on cotton canvas | 72 x 50 ½ inches

Icon for My Man Superman (Superman never saved any black people – Bobby Seale), 1969
(Self-portrait, cropped)
Oil, acrylic and aluminum leaf on linen canvas | 59 ½ x 48 inches

While on recent holiday, I was so pleased to stumble upon the Barkley L. Hendricks retrospective exhibit at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Mr. Hendricks is a native of Philadelphia who is best known for his life-sized portraits of people of color mostly in the urban northeast. This exhibit marks his first painting retrospective and consists of over fifty works from 1964 to the present. These paintings are oft marked by flat color backgrounds including some gorgeous white on white and black on black portraits and vice versa.

The sheer scale of Mr. Hendricks’ provocative portraiture coupled with the realistic detail, lighting and minimalist compositions are quite exciting to behold in person. Not to mention the terrific manner in which he has captured the no nonsense attitude, style and otherwise fashion sense of his subjects which has been rightly described as elevating the common man and woman to celebrity status. Take for example the first portrait above of small-time drug dealer Willie Harris of New Haven, Connecticut whom Mr. Hendricks encountered while completing his MFA at Yale.

Birth of the Cool was organized by Trevor Schoonmaker, curator of contemporary art at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The exhibit opened at Nasher two years ago and has now traveled to the east coast, west coast and now Houston where it closes April 18th. If you find yourself in the Houston area between now and then, you will definitely want to catch this exhibit at the CAMH (free admission always). However, I would think twice about bringing young children in tow as some of the works include full frontal nudity including the humorous self-portrait above of Mr. Hendricks sporting a fro, Superman t-shirt, shades and no pants.

As an extra bonus at CAMH, this painting exhibit is complemented by a second exhibit in an adjoining room, Walkin’ with Walker: Narrative Photography of Barkley L. Hendricks. This photography exhibit spans four decades of Mr. Hendrick’s work and was organized by The African-American Museum in Philadelphia and co-curated by the artist and Richard J. Watson.
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