Barkley L. Hendricks

Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool

Birth of the Cool

previous slide
Zoom in
next slide

Barkley L. Hendricks

Icon for Fifi, 1982

Oil and combination leaf on linen canvas,
60 ¼ x 50 ¼ in.

Courtesy of the artist.
 

Barkley L. Hendricks
Blood (Donald Formey), 1975
Oil and acrylic on cotton canvas, 72 x 50 ½ in.
Collection of Dr. Kenneth Montague/The Wedge Collection, Toronto
 

Barkley L. Hendricks
Vertical Hold, 1967
Oil, acrylic and metallic silver on cotton canvas, 47 x 44 in.
Courtesy the artist
 

Barkley L. Hendricks
George Jules Taylor, 1972
Oil and acrylic on cotton canvas, 93 1/8 x 62 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; William C. Whitney Foundation
 

Barkley L. Hendricks
Dippy’s Delight, 1969
Oil and acrylic on cotton canvas, 46 in. diameter
Collection of Blake Byrne, Los Angeles
 

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (installation view), 2008

Photo: Adam Reich

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (installation view), 2008

Photo: Adam Reich

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (installation view), 2008

Photo: Adam Reich

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (installation view), 2008

Photo: Adam Reich

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks

Icon for Fifi, 1982

Oil and combination leaf on linen canvas,
60 ¼ x 50 ¼ in.

Courtesy of the artist.
 

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks
Blood (Donald Formey), 1975
Oil and acrylic on cotton canvas, 72 x 50 ½ in.
Collection of Dr. Kenneth Montague/The Wedge Collection, Toronto
 

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks
Vertical Hold, 1967
Oil, acrylic and metallic silver on cotton canvas, 47 x 44 in.
Courtesy the artist
 

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks
George Jules Taylor, 1972
Oil and acrylic on cotton canvas, 93 1/8 x 62 in.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; William C. Whitney Foundation
 

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks
Dippy’s Delight, 1969
Oil and acrylic on cotton canvas, 46 in. diameter
Collection of Blake Byrne, Los Angeles
 

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (installation view), 2008

Photo: Adam Reich

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (installation view), 2008

Photo: Adam Reich

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (installation view), 2008

Photo: Adam Reich

Birth of the Cool

Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (installation view), 2008

Photo: Adam Reich

Nov 12, 2008Mar 15, 2009

In fall of 2008, The Studio Museum in Harlem was the second stop for the first career retrospective of renowned African-American painter Barkley L. Hendricks (b. 1945). Hendricks was born in Philadelphia, trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Yale University and now lives and works in New London, Connecticut. He is best known for his life-size portraits of people of color living in urban areas in the 1960s and 70s. This unparalleled exhibition of Hendricks’s paintings included work from 1964 to the present. Alongside his iconic portraits, Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool will feature many of Hendricks’s lesser known, older works and his newest pieces: small plein air studies of the Jamaican landscape. This exhibition was organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University and was curated by Trevor Schoonmaker.  After it left the Studio Museum, the exhibition traveled to the Santa Monica Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

This exhibition is sponsored in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, and the North Carolina Arts Council with funding from the state of North Carolina.