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The backgrounds are painted in oil, the figures in acrylic.
Hendricks gets them to flow together into a single, transfiguring lake.
She is a soft-edged being, as real as she is ideal, mortal and immortal.
Hendricks had a real feel for body language.
The painter was sensitive to how these cocksure representations were received.
He wears a kufi cap and looks at you with seething eyes.
When Kramer referred to Hendricks as brilliantly endowed, he responded with a brilliant work titledBrilliantly Endowed.
That painting isnt here (cmon, Frick!
), but it features the artist in a full-frontal nude pose wearing socks and glasses.
(One of his teachers was Walker Evans.)
He also honed his skills at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Within these narrow confines, painting with delicate precision, Hendricks rendered a beautiful group of impeccable peacocks.
The way they are different, as becomes obvious when you are at the Frick, is their race.
The subject of race was a source of anger and irritation for Hendricks.
Anything a Black person does, he said, is put into a political category.
He called such designations a white myopic approach to what I do.
Of his white critics, he said, It was political in their minds.
My paintings were about people that were part of my life.
He added, How many white artists get asked about how their whiteness plays a part in their work?
Hendricks demanded to be considered as a whole artist.
If this were shown in Lagos, it might not mean much at all.
But here, it does.
Here, it means a lot.
