Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017)

Timeline
Born in Philadelphia, PA
M.F.A., Yale University, New Haven, CT
B.F.A., Yale University, New Haven, CT
Certificate, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia

From art.state.gov

Barkley L. Hendricks (born 1945, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a contemporary African American painter who made pioneering contributions to black portraiture and conceptualism. While he worked in a variety of media and genres throughout his career (from photography to landscape painting), Hendricks’ best known work takes the form of life-sized painted oil portraits. In these portraits, he attempts to imbue a proud, dignified presence upon his subjects, most frequently urban people of color. Hendricks’ work has been noted as unique for its matrimony of both American realism and post-modernism. Hendricks earned his certificate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Yale University. He served as a professor of art at Connecticut College.

Hendricks’ work can be viewed in many public institutions, including the National Gallery of Art, the Chrysler Museum of Art, the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, among others. Hendricks’ first career painting retrospective, titled Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool, with works dating from 1964 to present, was organized by Trevor Schoonmaker at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University in spring 2008, has traveled to the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Santa Monica Museum of Art, is on view now at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and will finish at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston in spring 2010.

Hendricks’s work was featured on the cover of the April 2009 issue of Artforum Magazine, with an extensive review of Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool. www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barkley_L._Hendricks

Art Treasure Box | The Birth of the Cool – In The Know with Barkley L. Hendricks

artnet: Barkley L. Hendricks Biography

Art Review: Slick and Styling: Provocative Poses, by Ken Johnson, NY Times

Archived Exhibit: PAST EXHIBITIONS / BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS: BIRTH OF THE COOL
FEBRUARY 7, 2008 – JULY 13, 2008

Modern Art Note Podcast: Barkley L. Hendricks

Oral history interview with Barkley L. Hendricks, 2009 June 18. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

View Art Retrospective