The Frick Madison’s new show, “Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick,” is an inspiring showcase of the late artist’s work.
Hendricks, who died in 2017, is known for his naturalistic paintings of African Americans. A painter who also used photography to capture realistic images of people, Hendricks studied and used the styles of Old-World European artists to create contemporary portraits of Black people.
Antwaun Sargent and Aimee Ng, the Frick’s curators, noted in the show’s accompanying audio tour that “The Frick was one of his favorite museums, and he visited again and again to study paintings by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Bronzino, and many others.”
The Frick has placed 14 of Hendricks’ portraits thoughtfully throughout the museum’s fourth-floor exhibition space in a way that allows them to show off their grandeur, but also puts them within the context of the portraiture the Frick Museum is known for.
The entrance to the exhibit features Hendricks’s “Lawdy Mama” (1969, oil and gold leaf on canvas), a portrait of his cousin, Kathy Williams; the piece is part of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s permanent collection. She stands front and center, assertive yet not aggressive, with a large afro and demonstrating resoluteness.
Hendricks outlines his cousin in basic black clothing and then portrays her in a style reminiscent of Italian Renaissance religious paintings, Ng said during the exhibition’s audio tour. “In the historic gold-ground paintings, which are sacred paintings in the Christian faith, the gold signifies the divine,” Ng said. “Hendricks challenged himself to learn the centuries-old and very difficult technique of applying gold leaf. The sitter’s afro echoes the form of a halo, and the rounded top, which he crafted himself, evokes the geometry that was so important to Renaissance painters.”
“Lawdy Mama” is positioned at the entrance to the exhibit, between two marble busts by the French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon. The placement helps viewers understand the artistic challenges Hendricks took on when he decided to, as Sargent suggested, “embrace historic European art” while depicting individuals in the Black community.
The exhibition shows Hendricks’s skill as he maneuvers through ways of depicting full-length portrayals of Black bodies. We see his understanding and appreciation of modern fashion styles, and his attention to the gradations in Black skin tones.
Sargent wrote in the exhibition’s catalog that, “Hendricks…set out to paint something the Black and white art worlds had not seen: ordinary people at scale. The life-size portraits he produced were of friends, students, lovers, musicians, classmates, the local weed man, himself, his wife, fashionable family members, and complete strangers…Many of his photorealist portraits have the shine or superficiality of pop art, the color play of abstraction, and the selective palette of minimalism. Moreover, in deploying fashion, his images conferred allure and status on often underrepresented figures, while at the same time drawing connections to contemporary culture.”
“Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick,” embraces the artist’s long-term goal of positioning Black bodies as praiseworthy and deserving of reflection. The exhibition allows viewers to stand back, observe, and honor everyday Black people.
“Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick,” is on view through January 7, 2024, at Frick Madison (945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street, Manhattan, NY 10021). Tickets can be purchased at frick.org/tickets. For more information, call 212-288-0700 or email info@frick.org.
