Alfred ContehMalik and Marquis
Art Bridges Collection
Barkley L. HendricksBrenda P
About
Barkley Hendricks stated, “Where human subjects are concerned, I address what is in front of me.”
With Brenda P, the artist presents a boldly sophisticated figure that possibly depicts Brenda Payton from the Philadelphia based R&B group Brenda and the Tabulations. Standing poised with hands on her hips, Brenda P appraises the viewer from behind fashionable rose-tinted sunglasses. A vivid vermillion blouse contrasts her black, lacquered nails, and the flares of Hendricks’s famously mimetic denim compliment the subject’s graceful stance.
The work’s neutral background emphasizes these details, which simultaneously declare the subject’s strength of identity and the rich cultural ethos of Philadelphia in the 1970s. Hendricks’s works are informed by his expansive knowledge of art history, yet the artist recognized that, historically, European conventions have often either omitted or marginalized Black bodies.
Powerfully regal and dignified, Brenda P challenges an imbalanced art historical canon while celebrating the subject’s confidence and self-expression.
Artist
Barkley L. Hendricks
Dimensions
72 × 50 in. (182.9 × 127 cm) Framed: 76 5/8 × 54 5/8 × 3 1/2 in.
Credit Line
Art Bridges
Date
1974
Medium
Oil and acrylic on canvas
Object Number
AB.2018.11
Signed
u.r.: B Hendricks
Provenance
Artist; (The Project, New York, NY); purchased by Private Collection, New York, 2005; to (Sotheby's, New York, NY), May 16, 2018, sale N09858, lot 8; purchased by Art Bridges, TX, 2018
Artwork Gallery
1/2
Partner Story
Celebrating Black Life at the Mattatuck Museum
In summer 2021, the in Waterbury, Connecticut, displayed works by some of today’s most influential Black contemporary and modern artists. Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley, Romare Bearden and Jordan Casteel were just some of the artists in the Mattatuck’s A Face Like Mine exhibition. Featuring over seventy artworks from the 1920s to today, the exhibition examined representations of African American and Black experiences through photographs, sculpture, textiles, paintings, and multi-media. Arranged thematically, A Face Like Mine used art to explore shifting ideas on identity, community, racial politics, and performance, honoring a century of African American and Black art and art making.
A Face Like Mine at the Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury Connecticut
