Jun 10, 2014 - Sale 2353

Sale 2353 - Lot 80

Price Realized: $ 106,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 80,000 - $ 120,000
BARKLEY L. HENDRICKS (1945 - )
Sergio.

Oil and acrylic on linen canvas, 1972. 1520x1118 mm; 60x44 inches. Signed and dated in oil, upper right.

Provenance: Kenmore Galleries, Philadelphia, with the gallery label on the frame back; private collection, Philadelphia.

Exhibited: Barkley Hendricks, Kenmore Galleries, Philadelphia, 1972; Hobson Pittman and His Students, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, January 20 - February 18, 1973; Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC, 1975; Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC, February 7 - July 13, 2008, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Santa Monica, CA, May 9 - August 15, 2009, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, September 18 - December 20, 2009, Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX, January 23, 2010 - April 18, 2010, with the label on the frame back.

Illustrated: Schoonmaker, Trevor. Barkeley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool. Durham, NC: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, 2008, p. 66, cat. 16.

Sergio is a bold portrait by Barkley Hendricks that was painted at the beginning of his career, and is an excellent example of his trail-blazing work in portraiture. According to the artist, the model, a Yale University undergraduate student, posed for Hendricks when he was finishing his MFA studies in the spring of 1972. The artist would have his second solo exhibition at Kenmore Galleries in 1973 just a year later. For this exhibition, Hendricks refined his portraiture on monochromatic backgrounds. Hendricks painted Sergio as part of a group of amibitious full length portraits including Ms. Johnson (Estelle) and Sir Charles, Alias Willie Harris. Hendricks captured not just their likeness but the panache and small details of each figure's "look". The fashion and personality of Sergio is reinforced by both his nonchalant pose and expression. Hendricks used this distinctive deep royal blue background color again for his painting Mayreh (Mary Sheehan), 1973.