Edited by Zoé Whitley. Text by Duro Olowu, Richard J. Powell, John Jennings, Susan Thompson. Conversation between Trevor Schoonmaker and Susan Hendricks.
The long-awaited monograph on Barkley L. Hendricks’ powerful portraits of contemporary Black subjects
Barkley L. Hendricks is rightly known as one of the foremost American painters of the late 20th century. His six-decade artistic oeuvre encompasses not only portraits but also includes evocative landscapes, hard-edged geometric abstractions, lush watercolors on paper and singular photographs informed by his studies with Walker Evans. This final publication of a five-volume set dedicated to the artist is a 300-page monograph that captures his full evolution as a portraitist. Solid! is a compilation of Hendricks’ acclaimed figurative paintings: large-scale canvases of distinctively dressed (or undressed) individuals, including several self-portraits, against solid-color backgrounds. Critical essays from curators and fellow artists provide further, often personal, insight into all aspects of Hendricks’ practice: probing his photographic experimentation as a forbear to contemporary street photography; celebrating his sensitivity as a colorist whose unique expertise seamlessly combines oil-based and water-based pigments; and 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. The book closes with a conversation between Trevor Schoonmaker and Barkley’s widow, Susan Hendricks, in which she recounts their trips to Jamaica and Barkley’s process for creating landscape and fruit paintings outdoors. Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) was born in Philadelphia and trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Yale. His life-size paintings of everyday Black Americans have inspired generations of artists. Hendricks gave up painting in favor of photography, but returned to oil portraits later in life. He taught at Connecticut College from 1972 until 2010.
Featured image is reproduced from 'Barkley L. Hendricks: Solid!.'
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Not only a visual feast, but also a deep dive into the process and impact of an artist whose influence is unparalleled.
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Just in time for Black History Month, leap-year edition, Barkley L. Hendricks: Solid! has arrived! Collecting the influential American figurative painter’s iconic portraits alongside his increasingly prized landscapes, geometric abstractions, watercolors and photographs, this is the major and must-have monograph on the artist. Featured here is his 1979 painting, Have You Met Ms. Jones, from editor Zoé Whitley’s essay, “For the Love of You: Barkley L. Hendricks’s Reasons for Painting.” In it, Whitley cites Toni Morrison’s noted 2019 essay on “The Source of Self-Regard” in Black culture, which Morrison traced in music, lyrics, “the literature, the language, the custom, the posture…” and other evolutions in how “the possibility of
personal freedom, and interior imaginative freedom […] could be engaged.” “Like Morrison,” Whitley concludes, “Barkley L. Hendricks took in all of these aspects and translated physical bodies into a body of work too often reduced to cool surfaces, but in reality teeming with heart, humor and humanity.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.5 x 11.75 in. / 300 pgs / 200 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $70.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $102 ISBN: 9788857241494 PUBLISHER: SKIRA AVAILABLE: 3/12/2024 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA LA
Published by SKIRA. Edited by Zoé Whitley. Text by Duro Olowu, Richard J. Powell, John Jennings, Susan Thompson. Conversation between Trevor Schoonmaker and Susan Hendricks.
The long-awaited monograph on Barkley L. Hendricks’ powerful portraits of contemporary Black subjects
Barkley L. Hendricks is rightly known as one of the foremost American painters of the late 20th century. His six-decade artistic oeuvre encompasses not only portraits but also includes evocative landscapes, hard-edged geometric abstractions, lush watercolors on paper and singular photographs informed by his studies with Walker Evans. This final publication of a five-volume set dedicated to the artist is a 300-page monograph that captures his full evolution as a portraitist.
Solid! is a compilation of Hendricks’ acclaimed figurative paintings: large-scale canvases of distinctively dressed (or undressed) individuals, including several self-portraits, against solid-color backgrounds. Critical essays from curators and fellow artists provide further, often personal, insight into all aspects of Hendricks’ practice: probing his photographic experimentation as a forbear to contemporary street photography; celebrating his sensitivity as a colorist whose unique expertise seamlessly combines oil-based and water-based pigments; and 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. The book closes with a conversation between Trevor Schoonmaker and Barkley’s widow, Susan Hendricks, in which she recounts their trips to Jamaica and Barkley’s process for creating landscape and fruit paintings outdoors.
Barkley L. Hendricks (1945–2017) was born in Philadelphia and trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Yale. His life-size paintings of everyday Black Americans have inspired generations of artists. Hendricks gave up painting in favor of photography, but returned to oil portraits later in life. He taught at Connecticut College from 1972 until 2010.
