Known for his portraits of stylish Black people painted from the ‘60s onward, Barkley L. Hendricks’ lesser-known body of work merging minimalism and basketball is now on view at Chelsea’s Jack Shainman Gallery. Between attending the Pennsylvania Academy of Art and Yale, Hendricks worked for the Philadelphia Department of Recreation as an artist with access to the courts and games that inspired pieces like ‘Two!’ Though the ball is in motion here, a sense of stillness pervades, as if the artist is savoring a moment in a game. Though circular and rectangular forms dominate and bring to mind hard-edge abstraction, Hendricks evokes the flat stillness of a momentous scene in an early Renaissance painting. (On view in Chelsea through April 30th).
Barkley L. Hendricks, Two!, oil on linen, 44” diameter, 1966-67.
Merrily Kerr is an art critic and writer based in New York. For more than 20 years, Merrily has published in international art magazines including Time Out New York, Art on Paper, Flash Art, Art Asia Pacific, Art Review, and Tema Celeste in addition to writing catalogue essays and guest lecturing. Merrily teaches art appreciation at Marymount Manhattan College and has taught for Cooper Union Continuing Education.
For more than a decade Merrily has crafted personalized tours of cultural discovery in New York's galleries and museums for individuals and groups, including corporate tours, collectors, artists, advertising agencies, and student groups from Texas Woman's University, Parsons School of Design, Chicago's Moody Institute, Cooper Union Continuing Education, Hunter College Continuing Education and other institutions. Merrily's tours have been featured in The New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, Sydney Morning Herald and Philadelphia Magazine.
Merrily is licensed by New York City's Department of Consumer Affairs as a tour guide and is a member of the International Association of Art Critics (AICA USA)
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