The website Culture Type was paying close attention to the clutch of Barkley Hendricks works on offer at Sotheby’s. The painter, who died recently, had been a mainstay of Swann’s African American sales progressively setting record prices in the mid-six figures.
At Sotheby’s on Friday, those prices were left behind as two works bumped up against the seven-figure barrier in quick succession. The interest in Hendricks has become so intense, copies of the catalogue from the Nasher Museum’s 2008 retrospective of his work, Birth of Cool, are trading on Amazon for more than $1100 in hardcover and nearly $500 in paperback:
“Yocks” sold for $942,500 (including fee) at Sotheby’s New York, a record for the artist, which only held for a few moments.
Lot 188: BARKLEY HENDRICKS (1945-2017), “The Way You Look Tonight / Diagonal Graciousness,” 1981 (oil, acrylic and white gold leaf on linen). Estimate $200,000-$300,000. Sold for $960,500 (including fees).
Lot 189: BARKLEY HENDRICKS (1945-2017), “Innocence & Friend,” 1977 (oil and aluminum leaf on canvas, in two parts). | Estimate $100,000-$150,000. Sold for $396,500 (including fees)
Sotheby’s Posthumous Sale of 3 Paintings by Barkley L. Hendricks Yields Artist Record (Culture Type)
