A mong the most recognizable images of Barkley L. Hendricks' limited and legendary body of work, Arriving Soon announces Hendricks' ineffable cool at an operatic scale, reconciling the technical profundity of the Old Masters, the playfulness of Pop and the incandescent theatricality of the Baroque. Executed in 1973, the work possesses a monumentality and narrative complexity so singular and arresting that it reigns virtually unparalleled as a masterwork by the artist.
Hendricks worked thoughtfully and methodically, producing at most around a dozen portraits a year; he largely halted his painting practice from 1984 to 2002, during which time he devoted himself to photography, making works of this caliber rarer still. The tight corpus of canvases he left behind today stands as a testament to the vitality, humanity, individuality and charisma he afforded his subjects, all the while redressing the absence of Black figures in the genre of portraiture.
This piece will be part of Sotheby’s Now & Contemporary Evening Auction on 18 November 2025 in New York.
