New York (July 17, 2023)—Since opening in 1935, The Frick Collection has inspired generations of artists who have engaged with the complex legacies and enduring importance of Old Master painting. Barkley L. Hendricks was one such artist, and the Frick—with its iconic portraits by Rembrandt, Bronzino, Van Dyck, and others—was one of Hendricks’s favorite museums.
On view this fall at Frick Madison, Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick presents fourteen early works by this pioneering American artist who, beginning in the late 1960s, revolutionized contemporary portraiture by uniting portraits of Black figures with traditions of European painting. His work has inspired some of the most prominent artists of today, including Derrick Adams, Mickalene Thomas, and Kehinde Wiley. Frick Madison is a particularly appropriate venue for this show, as it was in the Breuer building (then the home of the Whitney Museum of American Art) that Hendricks first showed his art in a New York City museum exhibition, in 1981.
Barkley L. Hendricks: Portraits at the Frick, which will display paintings drawn from both public and private collections, is organized by the Frick’s Curator Aimee Ng and Consulting Curator Antwaun Sargent. The accompanying catalogue is authored by Ng and Sargent, with a foreword by Thelma Golden and contributions by Adams, Thomas, and Wiley, along with Hilton Als, Nick Cave, Awol Erizku, Rashid Johnson, and Fahamu Pecou. The Frick will present a roster of educational programs to complement the show.