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Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017) North Philly Niggah (William Corbett), 1975
12019-08-27T10:57:42-07:00Lauren Cesirof37e4e52c3d9a4ff08b7937020ee9048f11c6739346708This image is featured in the exhibition, “not but nothing other: African American Portrayals, 1930s to Today.“ Hover over the highlighted rectangles for more information and links to related content.plain2019-09-27T14:12:51-07:00Lauren Cesirof37e4e52c3d9a4ff08b7937020ee9048f11c6739
12019-09-03T18:50:36-07:00Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017) North Philly Niggah (William Corbett), 19755Label & Mediaplain2020-01-28T15:47:48-08:00 In a posthumous tribute to Hendricks, critic Antwaun Sargent celebrates “his cast of ordinary icons, who root the Black image in real life,” singling out this portrait of “a fiercely chic brother from the hood who shows his sensibility” in his sartorial flair—a long peach trench coat with fur lapels, complemented by a magenta shirt—and in his cool, appraising gaze. “When looking at paintings like this,” Sargent concludes, “it becomes clear that Hendricks was a modern master who painted us.”
Indeed, Hendricks’s works are embedded in both the street—where he was drawn to individuals’ attitude, style and soul—and the museum, where he saw himself interceding in the great tradition of Western portraiture, which had largely excluded the Black subject. From this conjunction, he produced paintings at once utterly contemporary and enduring in their subjects’ dignity and grandeur, icons of cool that are also technical masterpieces of color and facture.
