Barkley hendricks biography of michaels

Barkley L. Hendricks (b.

Barkley hendricks biography of michaels

Philadelphia, PA, 1945; d. New Haven, CT, 2017) was an American painter and photographer who revolutionized portraiture through his realist and post-modern oil paintings of Black Americans living in urban areas, beginning in the 1960s and 1970s.

Hendricks’ depictions of the Black figure exude attitude and style. The artist culled subjects for his hagiographic portraits from sartorially minded friends and acquaintances he encountered around the world, including travels to Jamaica, his hometown of Philadelphia, and Connecticut where he last lived and worked.

He applied intense focus to his subjects while painting, allowing him to capture their unique personalities. Steeped in pop culture and balanced with exquisite detail, the cast of characters in Hendricks’ work inhabits an unconventional realism united by painterly mastery.

While the directness of his subjects’ gaze could be piercing, Hendricks invoked humor through th