In 2019, Linda and I visited the the California African American Museum in Los Angeles and saw their marvelous exhibition, Ernie Barnes: A Retrospective.

One of the most in-demand artists compelling high auction prices in recent years is Ernie Barnes 1938-2009. We love his work. It is intriguing, wondrous and most worthy.

Dance Studio was one of my favorite paintings of this exhibition. I love the dedication on the faces of the dancers, their deep concentration and expressiveness. The lighting from the green ceiling lamps and sunlight from the windows reflects the dancers on the shiny wooden floor.

Friendly Baptist Church 1984 is owned by Ernie Barnes' friend, Hardy Nickerson. Hardy was a former player for Cal-Berkeley and an NFL linebacker for 16 seasons, playing mostly for the Steelers and Buccaneers. He then held a number of coaching positions for colleges and in the NFL. In 2016, he was slotted to become the 49er's linebacking coach, but was hired away to become the defensive coordinator for the University of Illinois.

In this painting, Barnes pictures Hardy Nickerson as a young boy. He is seated in the second row of this church looking at a magazine with his young cousin. According to the museum notes, the boys were forced to attend, but they participated on their own terms. Instead of participating in the raucous hymn singing, they chose to focus on a football magazine. The colors, the joy, the rhythm in this painting is infectious. Notice the same green lampshades appear again here as they are in Dance Studio above.

Red Guitar really isn't about the guitar at all, its about the young musician. He is probably a street youth of no great achievement, but in this moment, he is within his dream, pouring every ounce of his creativity into his expressive sound.

In both Final Study for the Drum Major and his finished painting Drum Major, notice the proud, deliberative and purposeful movement. The drum major wears his cape as if it were a King's robe. His chin-strapped hat appears like a Pharaoh's crown and his baton is his royal scepter. The golden color in both of these paintings gives the drum major royal presence.

Recently, I saw a printed ad for the 2024 telecast of the upcoming Miss America pageant and I was reminded of this exhibition and of Ernie Barnes' painting entitled My Miss America.

For years, the Miss America perennial host Bert Parks saluted the contest's winner by singing the pageant's official theme song, "There she is, Miss America, there she is, your ideal."

In Barnes' My Miss America, Ernie expresses his ideal. He chose to picture what he believed to be the crowning achievement of African American women. Far beyond traditional pageant categories like evening dresses and swimsuits, Barnes chose to elevate more meaningful qualities and traits. For him, African American women were the source of considerable maternal strength and beauty.

The woman pictured in Ernie's My Miss America is a nurturing provider, a source of self sacrificing labor and love. He presents her toting heavy bags of groceries, her eyes closed as if in solemn prayer and purpose.

Similarly these ideas are at play in the painting pictured below, Window Wishing. Here, real life working women stand admiring high fashion on faceless mannikins. For Barnes, beauty and fashion isn't what one wears, but what one is.

In the painting below, Study for Woman of Color, continues on the themes established in My Miss America. Here he shows a scale, balancing the time required to pick the thorny cotton, a visual metaphor for the time and labor it took to bring home the groceries. The backdrop for the woman of color is a barrage of commonly heard negative labels, all commonly used by many to keep women of color down.

The contrast could not be more striking. This woman, in spite of all the racism and the hate, abides and endures. As she carries home the groceries, in a larger sense she forges onward with her mission. Barnes adds to this figure a halo, giving her saint-like qualities.

Ernie Barnes, Study for Woman of Color, 2000
Acrylic on paper, Collection of Nancy Jones Justice and Family

In a Room Full A' Sistahs, Barnes recreates a scene he probably had seen his whole life. The friendship, love and sense of joyous community among a room filled with black women getting together for coffee and a chat. The painting has a warm sense of familial belonging, of sharing, and delight.

According to the exhibition placard, Late Night DJ was commissioned by Curtis Mayfield for his 1980 album, Something to Believe In. It states, "This late night woman D.J. is draped in a sensual red dress and fur collar coat. She seems to know exactly what her listeners want to hear." We can almost hear her buttery voice as she expresses "something to believe in."

While an art student in North Carolina, Ernie Barnes was exposed to the work of Italian and French painters from the 16th to the 19th centuries. In Barnes' The Competitive Spirit, he pictured a collapsed and defeated athlete attended to by his concerned coaches. When Barnes' The Competitive Spirit is seen side by side with Caravaggio's The Entombment of Christ, it is easy to see Carivaggio's influence on Barnes' approach to visual storytelling. There are numerous parallels between these two paintings, especially the size and detail of the hands.

One of the most interesting aspects of the Ernie Barnes exhibition was his reverence for the landscapes found in the work of Andrew Wyeth.

These Ernie Barnes paintings from this exhibition all borrowed atmospheric landscape elements rooted in the works of Andrew Wyeth.

Oh how I wish I could interview Ernie Barnes about his use of Wyeth's backgrounds, and allow him to express in his own words why he believed Wyeth's backgrounds provided a meaningful setting for Barnes' elongated lively figures.

My guess is that Barnes might say something like this: that all people, whether it is Christina in Christina's World or the tall youth in Hoop Dreams, bring their own set of characteristics and talents to life, and strive with optimism and hope to express them. Its as if Barnes is saying that the difference between Christina and the young man in Hoop Dreams really isn't all that much different after all.

In these two photos, Ernie Barnes shares his life in art with Good Times actor Jimmy Walker who played J.J. on the series.

Ernie Barnes strived to paint African American life. He studied all kinds of people just walking down the street or how someone would struggle with a heavy load of groceries.

For 6 years, Ernie Barnes was an NFL football player. He had a less than stellar career.

In 1959, he was drafted by the Washington Redskins in the 8th round, but the Redskins renounced their pick when they discovered Ernest Barnes was black. He was then picked up in the 10th round by the World Champion Baltimore Colts. The next year at age 22, he was the last player cut from the Colts.

His contract was then picked up by the newly formed New York Titans (today's NY Jets). Barnes hated playing for the Titans, seeing the newly formed team as unprofessional. When fellow Titans player Joward Glenn died on the field, Ernie had enough. Ernie believed Glenn died on the field due to heatstroke. He believed the team had not taken proper precautions, nor treated Glenn appropriately when he collapsed.

Next, Barnes accepted an offer from Coach Al Davis of the Los Angeles Chargers. Barnes joined their taxi squad. The following year in 1961, Barnes moved with the team to San Diego. There he met quarterback Jack Kemp who became a life long friend.

Throughout his NFL career, Ernie Barnes was an artist. While playing for the Denver Broncos from 1963 to 1964, Ernie was fined $100 for for sketching during a team meeting. Years later, that drawing sold for $1,000. By this time, Barnes teammates nicknamed him "Big Rembrandt." Ernie Barnes and Rembrandt shared the same birthday.

In 1987, LA Lakers owner Dr. Jerry Buss commissioned Ernie Barnes to create a painting celebrating the 1987 NBA Championship Lakers. Barnes then painted Fast Break.

The Lakers starting five, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, James Worthy, Kurt Rambis and Michael Cooper, appear in this painting. Notice that only Kareem's left shoe is on the floor; all other players are airborne creating an energetic sense of extreme speed and movement. The painting's low courtside vantage point looks up at the action, and the four streams of light from above add to the painting's vertical feel and division of space.

The Finish, one of Ernie Barnes' poster series
for the 1884 Olympic Games

The 1984 Olympics was a big deal, the first Olympics in the United States since 1932. The centerpiece of the Games was the LA Coliseum, originally built for the 1932 Games.

Four years earlier in 1980, the United States boycotted the Olympic Games in Moscow to protest the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. In 1984, the Soviet Union reciprocated by boycotting the Olympic Games in Los Angeles. Among Americans, the Russian boycott triggered a more than normal amount of nationalistic pride and interest.

Ernie Barnes was chosen as the official sports artist of the 1984 Olympic Games. The President of the 1984 LA Olympic Organizing Committee Peter Ueberroth said, "Ernie Barnes captures the essence of the Olympics."

George Bellows, (George) Dempsey vs (Luis) Firpo, 1924
(This painting was not part of the Ernie Barnes Exhibition)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Back in 1965 while Ernie was hoping to be named the NFL's official artist, New York art critics told New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin that Barnes was the best sports painter in America since George Bellows.

In the painting to the left, George Bellows depicts the September 14th boxing match between American Jack Dempsy and Argentinian Luis Firpo. The painting shows the famous moment when Dempsy punched Firpo out of the ring.

Barnes was influenced by artists from across the ages, including this famous painting by George Bellows. Barnes admired Bellows' attentiont to physical detail and his ability to tell a complex story in a single frame. Barnes uses interior light in a manner similar to the way Bellows used the overhead light in Dempsy vs Firpo.

Ernie's interest in sports went beyond football and boxing.

Slap Shot (below) shows a great deal of action and drama, and is similar to his LA Lakers painting, Fast Break.

Match Point (right) is a composition that shows the speed, strain and excitement of a tennis match, with each athlete going in opposite directions straining to keep the ball in play.

Below in 'Round the Turn, Barnes shows a pack of sprinters rounding the turn and heading for the home stretch, each straining and giving it everything they have.

Unlike the elongated athletic figures in most of Ernie Barnes' paintings, the denizens of Barnes' Pool Hall are rotund and sedentary denizens of a darker world. They are all watching as a fit athletic figure leans over the table lining up a shot. It was not noted at the exhibition, but the man cuing up the shot appears to be a self portrait of Ernie Barnes. Again, notice the lights above the table, similar to his lighting fixtures in many other Barnes' paintings.

This exhibition was a visual delight, and I indeed hope more Ernie Barnes exhibitions will be coming, hopefully to a museum near you. He is an exciting artist, notable and worthy.

Hal Reed (1921-2003) studied with the great Russian-American portraitist Nicolai Fechin. (see our August, 2018 Newsletter)

In WWII and the Korean Conflict, Hal was a decorated officer, working as a cartographer, earning a battlefield commission and five battle stars for distinguished service. He was a well known and respected art teacher. He studied at the Art Center School of Los Angeles and the Art League of San Francisco. He founded the Art League of Los Angeles where he taught composition, color harmony, anatomy and advanced painting techniques.

His paintings hung in Governor Reagan's office in Sacramento and are in the Los Angeles City Hall's permanent collection.

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

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