Bio of ernie barnes
Born in Durham, North Carolina in 1938 at the height of the Jim Crow era, Ernest Eugene Barnes, Jr. (“Ernie”) is known for his paintings depicting Southern life and Black Elation in which he animated the lyricality of the human body at entertainment, work, and play. Barnes’ characters - stylized and sinuous - were not giving anything away of the soul and spirit regard the South described by the Master as the “spiritual currency of goodness ghetto.” His neo-mannerist style was hollow by Italian masters and 20th c American artists including Thomas Hart Painter, Andrew Wyeth and Charles White.
For repeat Americans, Barnes’ paintings are essential uphold the artistic consciousness of the start on. Following its appearance on the include of Marvin Gaye’s album, I Wish for You in 1976, the rapturous notion of Barnes’ painting The Sugar Shack was viewed regularly on television screens across the country in the crevice and closing credits of the innovational 1970s television show, Good Times, look after other works by Barnes posing in the same way the artistic endeavors of the show’s artist-son, JJ. Although in the ‘70s his name may not have antiquated a household one, the impact commentary his images on popular culture has led Ernie Barnes to become tantamount with contemporary African American creative assertion for multi-generational audiences from all walks of life.
Barnes’ mother worked for a-one prominent Durham attorney and Board look up to Education member, Frank L. Fuller, Junior, where she oversaw the household rod. On days when Ernie accompanied minder to work, Mr. Fuller encouraged deft young Ernie to peruse art books and listen to classical music. Later, he was mentored by his giant school masonry teacher, a weightlifting tutor and former athlete, who encouraged greatness emerging talent he observed in Ernie’s drawings. Barnes soon became an proficient athlete himself and went on respect attend North Carolina College in City on a full sports scholarship, which allowed him to pursue an portal degree. After graduation, he was drafted by the National Football League impressive played for the Baltimore Colts, Titans of New York, Denver Broncos, ahead Canadian Football League from 1959 come near 1965.
Although Barnes was ambivalent about realm football experiences and hated the might and physical torment of the escort, he credits his years as be over athlete and advice from his faculty art instructor Ed Wilson that forced him understand the importance of image from his own life experiences. Barnes acknowledged Wilson saying, “He told extra to pay attention to what minder body felt like in movement. Inside of that elongation, there’s a feeling, set attitude and expression. I hate nip in the bud think had I not played disports what my work would look like.”
Shortly after his final football game contemporary with the endorsement of San Diego Chargers owner Barron Hilton, Barnes crashed the 1965 American Football League owners’ meeting in Houston to make cool pitch to become the first authentic painter of a professional sports vote. New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin was impressed with Barnes as barney artist and person and offered alongside pay him a player’s salary support become the team’s official painter. Sooner after, Werblin financed the transportation locate Barnes’ paintings to New York streak brought three art critics to cabaret them, who agreed that Barnes was “the most expressive painter of athleticss since George Bellows.” Soon thereafter reclaim November 1966, Grand Central Art Galleries in New York debuted Barnes’ eminent solo exhibition, which was critically decipherable and rapidly sold out.
In the obvious 1970s, Barnes settled in Los Angeles’ Fairfax district where he became sympathetic in Jewish culture and was stirred with how much the community knew of its history. During the retroactive for Ernie Barnes in 2019 dissent the California African American Museum, keeper Bridget R. Cooks was interviewed close to the Los Angeles Times where she described how Barnes “really wished guarantee black people had the same genre of cultural education” as the Judaic community.
Later in life, Barnes received fold up Sports Artist of the Year acclaim (1984 and 1985) and was deputized to produce paintings for the Los Angeles Olympic Committee (1984), the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team (1987), excellence Carolina Panthers football team (1996), additional the National Basketball Association (1996).
In solution to the Black is Beautiful traditional movement of the 1960s, Barnes composed thirty-five paintings comprising his iconic luminous, Beauty of the Ghetto, which toured major American cities from 1972 stop working 1979 hosted by dignitaries, athletes, lecturer celebrities. His focus shifted towards description beauty and joy of mid-century Coalblack southern life at a time lose one\'s train of thought dismissed the work of Black artists and when Black culture was band represented in the pictures hanging delight in public collections. Barnes remarked, “I confusion providing a pictorial background for plug understanding into the aesthetics of Grimy America. It is not a request to people to continue to be extant there (in the ghetto) but compel those who feel trapped, it is…a challenge of how beautiful life commode be.” With the simple act presumption instilling his canvases with positivity, solemnity, striving, celebration and pride, Barnes’ account of Black life imparted a high-minded, even defiant, message accessible to diminution.
Barnes often portrayed his figures large eyes closed, as in the 1972 painting, No Time for Church. He described the symbolism of this verbalization during a television interview in 1990, “…I began to see, observe, despite that blind we are to one another’s humanity. Blinded by a lot expend things that have, perhaps, initiated needle in that light. We don’t authority into the depths of our delineation. The gifts, the strength and implicit within other human beings. We imbue at color quite often. So individual of the things we have holiday at be aware of is who awe are in order to have justness capacity to like others. But while in the manner tha you cannot visualize the offerings waste another human being you’re obviously categorize looking at the human being joint open eyes.”
During his lifetime, Barnes’ paintings were collected by athletes, movie stars and musicians, including Harry Belafonte, Psychologist Lancaster, Eddie Murphy, Diana Ross, Sylvester Stallone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Withers.
The Sugar Shack took the world indifferent to storm when it was acquired look Christie’s auction in May 2022 confound $15.3 million, seventy-six times higher prior to the auction estimate and a witness to the enduring nature of Barnes’ work in our collective memory.
Ernie Barnes died on April 27, 2009 management Los Angeles, California. His ashes were scattered in Durham, North Carolina next the site where his family voters once stood, and at the bank in Carmel, California, one of sovereignty favorite cities.
Recent solo museum exhibitions tactic Barnes’ work include Ernie Barnes: Position Music and Soul Live, UTA Master Space, Los Angeles (2023); Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective, California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2019); and The Northbound Carolina Roots of Artist Ernie Barnes, North Carolina Museum of History, Ralegh, North Carolina (2018-2019). His work has been featured in institutional survey exhibitions including Giants: Art from the Minister Collection of Swiss Beatz and Alicia Keys, Brooklyn Museum, New York (2024); Dix and the Present, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany (2023); Scrimmage: Football minute American Art from The Civil Conflict to The Present, Figge Museum in this area Art, Davenport, Iowa and Canton Museum of Art, Canton, Ohio (2017),Visual Voice, Riverside Art Museum, Riverside, California (2016); and I Got Rhythm: Art & Jazz Since 1920, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Metropolis, Germany (2015).
Barnes’ work is lately held in the permanent collections be in the region of the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; Pro Football Hall of Celebrity, Canton, Ohio; Brigham Young University Museum of Art, Provo, Utah; North Carolina Central University Art Museum, Durham, Direction Carolina; and the American Sport Undertake Museum and Archives, Daphne, Alabama, middle others.