Barkley L. Hendricks, American painter, Died at 72

Barkley L. Hendricks was born on 1945 and died on April 18, 2017.

He was a contemporary American painter.

Henricks made pioneering contributions to black portraiture and conceptualism.

He participated in many media and genres throughout his career (from photography to landscape painting).

His most popular works took the form of life-sized painted oil portraits.

Sometimes in his portraits, Hendricks attempted to imbue a proud, dignified presence upon his subjects.

Henricks many times painted black Americans against monochrome interpretations of urban northeastern American backdrops.

His work is unique for its matrimony of both American realism and post-modernism.

He did not mentioned his subjects as celebrities, victims, or protesters, the subjects depicted in his works were often the voices of the under-represented blacks of the 1960s and 1970s.

He was sometime painted in his portraits along with his subjects, like in Slick(Self portrait), 1977 where he painted himself nude in response to an art critic’s comments on his show.

He gained his certificate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Yale University.

He was Professor Emeritus of Studio Art at Connecticut College from 1972 until his death.

Barkley L. Hendricks passed away at 72 years old.