BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, “Untitled,” circa 1975 (gelatin silver print, 16 x 24 inches, image); 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS (1945-2017) had an incredible eye. His latest gallery exhibition reveals what he saw. A little girl wearing a plaid dress and knee-high socks standing with one leg slightly in front of the other, replicating the pose of an unclothed mannequin perched on the sidewalk beside to her. An image of Abraham Lincoln displayed in a car window in such a way that it appears the storied President is a passenger in a vehicle manufactured a century after his assassination. The curve of a woman’s calf sheathed in artfully torn pantyhose, her arched foot in a backless, high-heel shoe.
During his lifetime, Hendricks was recognized primarily for the striking portraits he painted of his stylish friends and acquaintances, works dating from the 1960s and 70s. Meanwhile, an important aspect of his practice was little explored until a few years ago. Hendricks was also a prolific photographer, rarely seen without a camera around his neck. He made studies for paintings, shot self-portraits, and notably captured a spectrum of images showcasing his unique interests and visual perspective through ironic juxtapositions, tight cropping, and creative use of mirrors and reflection.
“Barkley L. Hendricks: Myself When I Am Real” at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York features more than 60 photographs, both color and black-and-white images spanning four decades, from 1965 to 2004. A selection of dozens is being shown publicly for the first time, having come to light through a cataloging process overseen by Susan Hendricks that revealed her late husband’s expansive photographic archive.
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1980 (archival inkjet print, 24 x 16 inches, image; 24 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1975 (gelatin silver print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
The inventiveness and preoccupations of Hendricks are on full display in “Myself When I Am Real,” which concludes today. Mannequins, cars, store windows, and women’s shoes appear frequently in the exhibition. In a suite of 1979 images, Hendricks captures himself and a woman reflected in his bedroom mirror. She is nude; He dons a white robe. The entire space is painted red—the door, the walls, and the bookshelves. Even some of the bed linens are red and all of them are rumpled.
Another image depicts the same woman from the bedroom scene standing on the street with Hendricks beside her snapping their picture as it is reflected in a round, black-framed mirror, presumably from a store window display. He revisits the same artifice in several other images, including a self-portrait, framing his reflection in the convex security mirror of an adult shop.
While artistry and sly humor define the great majority of the photographs, a series of television screen images delves into politics and touches on race, including footage of Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles police officers in 1991.
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, 1979 (archival inkjet print, 26 x 39 inches, print; 27 x 40 x 2 inches, framed. | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1975 (gelatin silver print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Concentrating on a TV screen with little else in the background, Hendricks made time capsule images in the 1980s and 90s, keenly representing American pop culture and current events through key figures of their time.
In addition to King, Hendricks captured everyone from Marilyn Monroe, Richard Nixon, Anita Hill, Clarence Thomas, and O.J. Simpson to Julie Child, Big Bird, Muhammad Ali, Brock Peters as Tom Robinson in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker from “All in the Family,” and Denzel Washington in the role of Malcolm X in Spike Lee’s dramatized biopic. Hendricks dispatched with the cast of curious characters navigating the Yellow Brick Road in the “Wizard of Oz” and instead documented Dorothy’s red sparkling slippers.
Most of the TV screen photographs were taken at Dutch Tavern, a local haunt Hendricks frequented, where an old-school television was installed in the corner, high on the wall. In his wide shots, a rack of potato chips, decorative ceiling tiles, and a deer head mounted on the wall can be seen. Dutch Tavern is located in New London, Conn., where Hendricks lived, worked, and taught at Connecticut College for 38 years.
Concentrating on a TV screen with little else in the background, Hendricks made time capsule images in the 1980s and 90s, keenly representing American pop culture and current events through key figures of their time, including Rodney King.
Installation view of “Barkley L. Hendricks, Myself When I Am Real,” 2023, Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 W 20th Street, New York, N.Y. | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo by Dan Bradica
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, 1992 (archival inkjet print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 18 x 26 inches, paper size; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 3/8 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
HENDRICKS GREW UP IN PHILADELPHIA, PA. The first camera he used was a Kodak Brownie that belonged to his mother. He also worked with a Polaroid camera that his next-door neighbor, John Floyd, let him borrow, Hendricks said in an oral history interview with the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art, conducted by Kathy Goncharov in 2009.
When he was an undergraduate student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia, Hendricks was awarded two travel prizes allowing him to spend three months in Italy and another three months in Northern Africa, visiting Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt. Hendricks purchased a range finder for these trips and then “graduated” to a single-lens reflex camera, he said in The Archives interview.
He went on to Yale where he earned a BFA and an MFA. While he studied painting at Yale, he took photography classes with Tom Brown and Walker Evans.
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, 1991 (archival inkjet print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, 1988 (archival inkjet print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Nigel Freeman asked Hendricks about his photography during a conversation at Swann Auction Galleries in New York in 2014. “I’ve taken my camera damn near everywhere,” Hendricks told Freeman, director of Swann’s African American Art Department. Then the artist explained how he trained himself early on.
“The situation with my being introduced to a darkroom was in Philadelphia. When I got a studio, the man who had the place previous to me was a photographer and he had to get out of town quick and he left all of his equipment there. I had the opportunity to start a rudimentary area of self-education as far as chemicals and darkroom use and enlargers and that kind of stuff,” Hendricks said.
“It was sufficient enough for me to get into my first photography class at Yale and once I got into that, the next year, I started to hang out more with the photographers and I was able to put together a portfolio that I presented to Walker Evans and I was able to get into his class. As one could say, that the rest is kind of history of sorts.”
At Yale, “I started to hang out more with the photographers and I was able to put together a portfolio that I presented to Walker Evans and I was able to get into his class. As one could say, that the rest is kind of history of sorts.” — Barkley L. Hendricks
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1980 (silver gelatin LE print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1995 (archival inkjet print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
SINCE HENDRICKS’S DEATH IN 2017, his estate and the gallery have embarked on an effort to present a fuller sense of the acclaimed portrait painter’s practice. A recent publication series dedicated individual volumes to his works on paper, landscape paintings, geometric basketball paintings, and his photography.
“Barkley L. Hendricks: Photography” (Skira) includes an essay by Anna Arabindan-Kesson, an art historian and Princeton University professor. She interviewed Hendricks and observed him photographing people he encountered on the street. He also photographed her.
“It was through photography that Barkley L. Hendricks got out into the world. He was an observer of people, places, scenes, and also, as he expressed to me, an observer of the medium,” Arabindan-Kesson wrote. “Photography enhanced his ‘eye,’ it helped him better understand how to look: as in looking at a scene to understand how it came together, and learning how a scene, a way of looking, could be arranged.”
“It was through photography that Barkley L. Hendricks got out into the world. He was an observer of people, places, scenes, and also, as he expressed to me, an observer of the medium.” — Anna Arabindan-Kesson
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, “Eggs,” 1976 (hand-tinted gelatin silver print drymounted on card, 5 1/4 x 7 9/16 inches, print; 11 x 14 inches, card; 13 7/8 x 15 3/4 x 1 1/4 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1980 (silver gelatin LE print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
In a video made by the Tate in London, Hendricks said, “My camera I call my mechanical sketch book. It allows me to get information. I’m fast, but I am not as fast as a camera.” He has also described his camera as a “tool.”
Last year, “‘My Mechanical Sketchbook’ — Barkley L. Hendricks & Photography” was organized by Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. The exhibition explored the artist’s photography and considered how the camera and his images functioned in relationship to other aspects of his practice.
The description of “My Mechanical Sketchbook” summarized the show: The exhibition “focuses on the significant and multifaceted role of the camera and the photographic image within Barkley L. Hendricks’s artistic practice. The show presents Hendricks’s photographs as autonomous artworks, models for oil paintings, and as ‘mechanical sketchbooks’—to cite the artist’s own words—that helped Hendricks capture and recall sights and insights. The exhibition illuminates the deep connections between Hendricks’s myriad forms of creative expression with photographs, Polaroids, paintings, and works on paper.”
Now Jack Shainman is presenting “Myself When I Am Real,” focusing entirely on the late artist’s photography. The exhibition is the gallery’s fifth solo show with Hendricks.
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1985 (gelatin silver print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, 1992 (archival inkjet print, 26 x 39 inches, print; 27 x 40 x 2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
A DECADE AGO, Jack Shainman mounted its first solo exhibition with the artist. “Barkley L. Hendricks: Heart Hands Eyes Mind” was on view in spring 2013. The show featured new and recent portrait paintings and a pair of oval landscapes alongside 25 photographs, including Polaroids.
The press release for the show noted the significance of the artist’s photography. “Hendricks has always worked between the realms of photography and painting, having studied with Walker Evans at Yale. He was introduced early on to portraiture through the perspective of the camera’s lens,” the release said.
Introducing a new crop of the artist’s famed portraits of cool, confident subjects, the paintings might naturally be considered the show’s headliners. When I visited the exhibition, however, it was the photographs on view, one image in particular, that drew my attention and stayed with me long after I left the gallery and continues to come to mind years later.
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1975 (gelatin silver print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1970 (gelatin silver print, 8 x 10 inches, print; 13 3/4 x 16 1/4 x 1 1/4 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
A large, 35 x 52-inch print of “Airport TV” was on display at the beginning of the show. The 1985 photograph depicts two women sitting side-by-side in an airport lounge in an era when televisions were built into the seating and people dressed up for airline travel. Both are wearing fur coats and heels and they have dozed off in nearly identical positions, each with their legs crossed and head resting on the side of their chair.
Even asleep, the women possess what Duke University Art Historian Richard Powell called a certain “elan,” when describing the subjects of Hendricks’s painted portraits, as featured in the exhibition “Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool” in 2009.
The contents of the photograph represent the artist’s discerning eye and many interests and proclivities. He was drawn to people with presence, authenticity, individuality, and “elan”; had a penchant subjects that came in duos and trios; and possessed an enduring adoration for women’s legs and shoes. After seeing “Airport TV” and the other photographs on view in the exhibition, I was eager to see much more.
Installation view of “Barkley L. Hendricks, Myself When I Am Real,” 2023, Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 W 20th Street, New York, N.Y. | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo by Dan Bradica
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, 1991 (archival inkjet print, 26 x 39 inches, image; 27 x 40 x 2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
THE RECENT PHOTOGRAPHY-BASED EXHIBITIONS and publication have been welcome developments. However, since his photography was under-emphasized and under-studied when Hendricks was alive, so much remains unknown.
When Hendricks gave lectures or was in conversation before public audiences, he invariably discussed some of his works, usually his portraits paintings, in some detail. He explained how the portraits came about, who the subjects were, decisions he made about the visual presentation, and other meaningful factors.
Speaking at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2016, his entire presentation was a journey through his portraits. He showed images of the paintings and provided insights and commentary about each of them. On March 21, 2017, less than a month before Hendricks died, he gave a similar presentation at Harvard Art Museums, before sitting down for a Q&A with a professor.
The recent photography based exhibitions and publication have been welcome developments. However, since his photography was under-emphasized and under-studied when Hendricks was alive, so much remains unknown.
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, 1967 (archival inkjet print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
It would be invaluable to hear Hendricks offer narratives about his photographs, particularly those in the current exhibition—nearly all of which are untitled—and learn the cities and specific locations where they were made, and how he would have titled them.
Questions abound. Who is the little girl standing next to the mannequin on the sidewalk? Was it a true random moment Hendricks encountered or was the entire scene creatively staged? What about the black pumps he photographed on The Great Wall of China? Did the shoes belong to his companion, who removed them to get the shot or were they brought along specifically as props in anticipation of making the photograph? Did Hendricks regard the images he made employing mirrors and reflections as references to Vermeer and Velázquez? What about the three young women he captured sitting together on a bench? Did he engage in a conversation about photography with the one in the middle who has a camera around her neck?
Early in his career, Hendricks painted cocksure, nude self-portraits with titles such as “Brilliantly Endowed” (1977) and “Brown Sugar Vine” (1970). He also represented himself through his clothing and accessories. In “Untitled (Self Portrait),” a photograph made in 1975, he wears a trench coat, patterned kufi, and a silver ring featuring a sizable sans serif “H,” with his camera held up to his eye, obscuring his face. Look closely at how he has positioned himself. What would Hendricks have to say about the faint white ring on the wall behind him that hovers just above his head like a halo? CT
Barkley L. Hendricks: Myself When I Am Real” is on view at Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, N.Y., from April 13-May 26, 2023 June 17, 2023
Another exhibition recently opened featuring 35 works in a range of mediums, including portraits and photography. “Barkley L. Hendricks in New London” is on view at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Conn., from May 27-Sept. 3, 2023
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled (Self-Portrait), circa 1975 (gelatin silver print, 24 x 16 inches, image; 24 1/2 x 16 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Installation view of “Barkley L. Hendricks, Myself When I Am Real,” 2023, Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 W 20th Street, New York, N.Y. | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo by Dan Bradica
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1965 (archival inkjet print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 18 x 26 inches, paper size; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 3/8 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1980 (silver gelatin LE print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, 1994 (archival inkjet print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 18 x 26 inches, sheet; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
Installation view of “Barkley L. Hendricks, Myself When I Am Real,” 2023, Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 W 20th Street, New York, N.Y. | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo by Dan Bradica
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, n.d. (archival inkjet print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1970 (gelatin silver print, 5 1/2 x 7 7/8 inches, image; 8 x 10 inches, print; 12 3/4 x 15 1/4 x 1 1/4 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS, Untitled, circa 1980 (silver gelatin LE print, 16 x 24 inches, image; 16 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 1 1/2 inches, framed). | © Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy the Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York
BOOKSHELF
“Barkley L. Hendricks: Photography” is part of a series of recent publications shedding light on lesser-known aspects of the artist’s practice. “Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool” documents the traveling exhibition organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Portraits by Hendricks were featured in Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power and one of them appears of the cover of the exhibition catalog. Another exhibition catalog, “Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at The Frick,” is forthcoming in September.
