Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs, it’s time to set the record straight about Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017), the master of portraiture who masterfully redefined the conventions of representation in contemporary art. Stop gushing over your convoluted theories and open your eyes to the raw power of his work.
Hendricks’ artistic trajectory is fascinating in more ways than one. Born in the Tioga neighborhood of Philadelphia, he grew up in a socially changing America. His early talent for drawing led him to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he received rigorous classical training. However, it was during a 1966 trip to Europe, thanks to the Cresson Scholarship, that he experienced a true revelation. Visiting major European museums, he was struck by the near-total absence of Black figures in classical portraits, aside from a few stereotypical depictions of servants or slaves. This realization would shape his entire artistic approach.
In the history of Western art, the representation of Black bodies was long confined to the margins, relegated to mere exotic or servile figuration. Hendricks shattered these narrow conventions by creating life-sized portraits of striking intensity. His subjects gaze back at us with quiet confidence, inhabited by a presence that transcends the canvas. They do not ask for permission to exist—they impose themselves, period.
His pictorial technique, inherited from the Old Masters he studied at length, displays absolute mastery. The monochrome backgrounds, rendered in flat acrylic, serve as a setting for figures painted in oil with stunning realism. This dual technique is not merely a stylistic effect but reflects deep thought on the dialectic between being and appearance, essence and façade. The use of acrylic for the backgrounds allows for quick execution and uniform colors, while oil provides the means to render flesh and fabrics with unmatched texture richness.
Consider “APB’s (Afro-Parisian Brothers)” from 1978—two elegantly dressed Black men stand out against a periwinkle purple background. Their impeccable silhouettes seem to float in an undefined space, as if suspended between two worlds. This staging echoes Hegel’s concept of recognition, where identity is constructed in the gaze of the other. Hendricks’ subjects do not beg for recognition—they demand it by their sheer presence. The treatment of clothing is particularly revealing: the three-piece suit of one of the men is rendered with photographic precision, each fold meticulously studied.
Fashion plays a major role in his work, not as mere adornment but as a political statement. The attire of his models—impeccable suits, patent leather shoes, glittering jewelry—is painted with near-photographic precision. Hendricks himself said, “Nobody paints jeans like me, with the awareness that it’s a material worn rather than painted”. This obsessive attention to sartorial detail fits into a philosophical tradition going back to Hegel, for whom clothing constitutes an essential mediation between the individual and society. His subjects’ outfits are not mere decorative attributes but markers of identity and social assertion.
Superficial critics saw in his paintings only “cool” portraits of 1970s Afro-American urban culture. What a monumental mistake! These works are in fact visual manifestos that confront the mechanisms of identity construction in a post-colonial society. When Hendricks painted “Lawdy Mama” in 1969, he did not merely depict his cousin wearing a majestic afro hairstyle. He created a modern icon that directly dialogues with the tradition of Byzantine religious painting while celebrating Black beauty in all its pride. The use of gold leaf for the background is not a simple decorative effect but a direct reference to religious icons, repurposed to sanctify a long-denied beauty.
The recurring use of monochrome backgrounds is not merely a formal artifice. It is part of a subtle strategy to decontextualize the subjects, pulling them away from sociological clichés to elevate them as autonomous presences. These uniform backdrops act as projection screens, forcing viewers to confront their own prejudices. This is particularly striking in “Blood (Donald Formey)” from 1975, where the model’s scarlet suit blends with an identically red background, creating a fusion/distinction effect that evokes Plato’s theory of the same and the other. The subject seems simultaneously to emerge from and merge with the background, in a visual tension metaphorizing the complexity of relationships between individual and society.
Though the political dimension of his work is undeniable, Hendricks always refused to be reduced to a militant artist. His approach was infinitely more subtle and complex. By appropriating the codes of the grand European portrait tradition to depict contemporary Black subjects, he did not merely overturn established hierarchies—he created a new visual language that transcended conventional racial categories. This approach reflects deep philosophical thought on the very nature of representation, reminiscent of Jacques Derrida’s analyses on deconstructing binary oppositions.
Hendricks’ radical modernity lies precisely in his ability to merge different pictorial traditions to forge a unique style. His portraits combine the hieratic frontality of Byzantine icons, the analytical naturalism of the Flemish Primitives, and the baroque theatricality of grand portraiture. But these scholarly references are entirely digested and reinvented in the service of a resolutely contemporary vision. In “Sir Charles, Alias Willie Harris” (1972), the subject is represented three times, in slightly different poses, against an olive-green background. This multiplication of the same character is not merely a stylistic effect but a visual meditation on identity and its variations.
“What’s Going On” (1974) perfectly illustrates this masterful synthesis. The painting features several figures in white suits against a white background, in a composition that simultaneously evokes antique sculpted groups and 1970s soul album covers. The title, borrowed from Marvin Gaye’s song, adds another dimension by referencing one of the most powerful musical critiques of American society. This is Hendricks’ genius: creating works that operate on multiple levels of meaning without ever losing their immediate visual impact.
His meticulous attention to clothing details is never gratuitous. In “Sweet Thang (Lynn Jenkins)” from 1975-1976, the detailed rendering of garments and accessories is part of a strategy to elevate the subject. The young woman, elegantly dressed, looks at us with a calm confidence that defies any attempt to reduce her to a stereotype. Her natural pose and magnetic presence perfectly illustrate what Hendricks called “the ordinary beauty of everyday life”.
Another major aspect of his work is his attention to light. His figures often emerge from the shadows in subtle chiaroscuro reminiscent of Rembrandt. But whereas the Dutch master used light to create an atmosphere of spiritual contemplation, Hendricks employed it to sculpt his subjects in space, giving them an almost tangible presence. This deliberate materiality resists the social invisibility Ralph Ellison described in “Invisible Man”.
His technical mastery is especially evident in the treatment of skin tones. Hendricks captures an extraordinary range of hues with remarkable accuracy, challenging traditional pictorial conventions that long neglected this dimension. In “Lawdy Mama”, the model’s skin is built up in successive layers, creating extraordinary depth and luminosity that contrasts with the matte gold background.
Hendricks’ influence on contemporary art is considerable, even if it has not always been adequately recognized. Artists like Kehinde Wiley, Amy Sherald, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye clearly owe him a debt, but none have matched the raw power of his portraits. There is an economy of means, a surgical precision in his work that commands admiration. Every element is weighed, calculated for maximum impact.
His legacy extends beyond the representation of Black bodies in contemporary art. He forces us to fundamentally rethink the very nature of portraiture as an artistic genre. In a world saturated with images, where identities are constructed and deconstructed on social media, his paintings remind us of the power of the fixed gaze, physical presence, and embodiment. The frontality of his portraits creates an inescapable face-to-face confrontation with the viewer, demanding recognition and respect.
It’s time to put away convoluted theoretical discourses and truly look at Hendricks’ work. These portraits challenge us today with the same urgency they did fifty years ago. In a world where questions of identity and representation are more pressing than ever, they show us a possible path: one of art that celebrates difference without fetishizing it, that affirms presence without falling into propaganda.
Photography played an important role in his creative process. Hendricks used the camera as a mechanical sketchbook, capturing his subjects in their natural environment before transposing them onto canvas. But his paintings are never mere photographic reproductions. He often altered clothing, poses, and accessories to create the strongest possible image. This freedom from photographic documentation allowed him to transcend realism to achieve a deeper truth.
His approach to portraiture goes far beyond mere physical representation. In “George Jules Taylor” (1972), the subject is portrayed with psychological intensity reminiscent of Hans Holbein’s finest portraits. The direct gaze, assured pose, carefully chosen clothing—all work together to create a portrait that is both an assertion of identity and a work of art.
Hendricks’ art is an art of regained dignity, assumed pride. His subjects look us straight in the eye, without arrogance but without concession. They are there, simply, magnificently there, in all their humanity. And perhaps that is Hendricks’ greatest achievement: creating images that resist time and trends, that continue to speak to us with undiminished power.
Let’s end with a revealing anecdote: when critic Hilton Kramer described his work as “brilliantly endowed” in 1977, Hendricks responded by painting a nude self-portrait ironically titled “Brilliantly Endowed”. That’s Hendricks in a nutshell: turning condescension into triumph, prejudice into art. A genius, I tell you. And if you disagree, you’ve understood nothing about contemporary art.