Late Professor Emeritus Barkley Hendricks gets solo show at the Frick

The late Professor Emeritus of Studio Art Barkley L. Hendricks considered New York’s The Frick Collection—with its iconic portraits by Rembrandt, Bronzino, Van Dyck, and others—to be one of his favorite museums.  

This fall, Hendricks’s own paintings, which revolutionized contemporary portraiture with their vivid depictions of everyday Black Americans, are hanging alongside the work of the European greats in the first solo show dedicated to an artist of color in the Frick’s 87-year history. 

“Hendricks’s astonishing portraits of predominantly Black figures, not represented in the Frick’s historic paintings yet who, with their self-assured style, appear right at home among them, grants unprecedented opportunities to celebrate and explore the Frick’s collection, Hendricks’s groundbreaking innovations, and the bridges between them,” said Frick curator Aimee Ng, who is organizing the show along with consulting curator Antwaun Sargent.

The exhibition opened in September in the museum’s temporary space, Frick Madison, and features about a dozen of Hendricks’s large-scale paintings drawn from private and public collections. Along with the exhibition, Hendricks’s art and its impact is further explored through a richly illustrated exhibition catalogue with contributions by artists and creative figures, including Derrick Adams, Hilton Als, Nick Cave, Awol Erizku, Rashid Johnson, Fahamu Pecou, Mickalene Thomas and Kehinde Wiley. The Frick is also offering a robust roster of educational public programs to complement the show, which considers the complex place of European painting in Hendricks’s art and how his work, in turn, continues to inspire major artists and designers today.

“Presenting Hendricks’s art at a storied institution like the Frick pays due tribute to the historic significance of Barkley L. Hendricks, and it also honors the evolving role of the Frick in modern American culture,” said Sargent.   

Read more about “Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick” in the Associated Press and The New York Times. In 2017, Hendricks gave his final interview to CC Magazine.