6 must-see exhibitions in Paris this February
By Lolita Mang
Barkley L. Hendricks | All is Portraiture at Marian Goodman
From Vermeer to Rembrandt … the Old Masters of Europe have been an undeniable influence on the paintings of American artist Barkley L. Hendricks (1944–2017). The origins of this obsession? A trip to the United Kingdom in 1966. In the heart of the National Gallery, he came across a group of students learning to draw by copying the masters of painting, and he himself was captivated by a work by the Dutch painter Anthony van Dyck, the portrait of Agostino Pallavicini (1621). “I was electrified, as if struck by lightning,” he recalled in 2016 for the Tate. At the time, the young man had not yet become the established artist he is today. Marked by the style of these classical painters, he retained several elements from their works, beginning with the materials. For example, it is the Renaissance-inspired gold that we find used to enhance some of his portraits, including the striking Lawdy Mama (1969).