Expanding the Canon: the Portraiture of Barkley L. Hendricks

Barkley L. Hendricks mostly painted portraits, a genre that flourished during the Renaissance becoming the symbol of the sitter's prestige, wealth and power. The representation of power was however never central to Hendricks' work and he also vehemently rejected the label of political artist: "Anything a black person does in terms of the figure is put into a political category. My paintings were about people that were part of my life.”

His iconic masterpiece Lawdy Mama intrigues me for its sumptuous visual celebration of the ordinary. Hendricks painted his cousin Kathy in her everyday clothes as she engagingly looks straight back at the viewer. Her afro hairdo frames her features like a giant halo, its round shape echoed by the curved top of the canvas like in the lunette of a Byzantine religious icon. By setting the woman's figure against a gold leaf background, Hendrick juxtaposes the mundane and the sacred. There is a sublime timelessness to this painting, a universality that blends the classical with the contemporary.

If we really wanted to look for a political gesture, then perhaps this lies in the 'elevation' of the ordinary people like Kathy, whom Hendricks depicted like deities. And because he only ever painted portraits of the people around him, by giving black people a prominence on canvas they had not known before, he also succeeded in finding them a place in the art historical canon.

#barkleyhendricks #blackart #portrait #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017)

Lawdy Mama, 1969

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York

© Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks

Betye Saar's "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima"

The Black Lives Matter movement is having an extraordinary impact on the way brands communicate and behave. Whether it's just 'woke washing' or genuine corporate activism, a growing number of consumers expects brands to become credible advocates of the black community and address long-standing racist and discriminatory stances. Some of the world's biggest names are scrambling to engage in the conversation and put things rights.

As a case in point, after 131 years Quaker Oats, owners of the Aunt Jemima breakfast food range, announced they would drop the name and packaging imagery as they committed “to make progress toward racial equality.” Sure took them a while. And let's be 100% clear here, when the brand was created in 1893, the founders hired a former slave to portray Aunt Jemima at the World's Fair in Chicago. In the mid-1950s, print ads showed the black maid superimposed over an image of a plantation and a riverboat. So yes, she was still and always slave.

In 1972 American artist Betye Saar (b.1926) started working on a series of sculptural assemblages, a choice of medium inspired by the work of Joseph Cornell. The most iconic is The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, where Saar appropriated a derogatory image and empowered it by equipping the mammy, a well-established stereotype of domestic servitude, with a rifle. The maid, who holds a broom in the other hand and a child in her arms, becomes a revolutionary symbol of the fight for Black liberation and female rights.

Speaking to the LA Times in 2016, Saar said: “It’s like they abolished slavery, but they kept Black people in the kitchen as mammy jars. I had this Aunt Jemima, and I wanted to put a rifle and a grenade under her skirts. I wanted to empower her. I wanted to make her a warrior. I wanted people to know that Black people wouldn’t be enslaved by that.” Saar welcomed the news that the brand was finally being retired on her Instagram account: "She’s liberated! Finally at long last! And it’s about time!"

Uncle Ben's has got to be next, surely?

#auntjemima #betyesaar #racialstereotypes #blackart #blackartist #blm #femaleartist #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

Betye Saar (b. 1926)

The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, 1972

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

The original Aunt Jemima and the 'updated' version from 1989.

An urgent appeal: Save the arts. Save our theatres.

An unusual post this week, but the cause is one that's very close to my heart. I grew up going to the theatre with my mother. Every week for many years we'd walk to Teatro Duse, named after a famous Italian thespian, in my hometown of Bologna to watch the classics: Pirandello, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Goldoni, Brecht, Chekhov, Pinter, Ionesco, Strindberg, Fo, Moliere, they have all contributed to my personal and intellectual education.

Theatre-going in London has proven a lot more sporadic than I would have wanted, but just as rich in memorable experiences. Jeremy Iron's magnetic performance in the adaptation of Sandor Marai's Embers back in 2006 was certainly one of them. More recently, my dear friend Allen and I enthusiastically endured the epic near 8-hour marathon that was Angels in America.

Our theatres are still closed and, with no emergency government funding, they may never open again. Please consider supporting the Custodians for Covid project, which sells beautiful photos of some of London's most iconic venues to raise funds trying to secure their future and that of their staff. I have chosen a picture of the Roundhouse, a place where I have spent many happy moments, hoping there will be many, many more to come.

#savethearts #saveourtheatres #artblog #artblogger #beyondthecanvasblog

The Roundhouse

Denise Stracey – member of Showsec Security Team London 2020