A Closer Look at

Career

Throughout his playing career, Barnes never stopped painting and drawing, and his calling finally came when the New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin offered for Barnes to become the unofficial painter of the NFL, reputedly telling Barnes “you have more value to the country as an artist than as a football player.” Barnes was living and working in New York at this time, but his move to Los Angeles would mark the beginning of the mature passage of his career that would see him moving between sports, music, film, and television, befriending and executing commissions for some of the most important figures in the industry. He would go on to make paintings for the television show Good Times, achieving a cult status, as well as being chosen for the album covers of artists including Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and B.B. King. Arguably one of his crowning moments, in 1984 Barnes was selected as the official artist for the Los Angeles Olympics of that year. It was the culmination of his dual careers that were unified in his timeless paintings. 

To many, Barnes’ paintings embodied the freedom of expression, the joy, and the togetherness that was at the heart of African American communities across America. His style, often termed ‘neo-mannerist’, captures figures in the throes of their social milieu, but they go further than this. Elongating their limbs and depicting them with closed eyes – two of Barnes’ most distinguished motifs – his subjects convey a reverence and joy that eclipses the representational, and this is none more illustrated than in the present work.