Barkley L. Hendricks: Basketball Text by Terry Myers.

The court, the ball and the hoop: Barkley Hendricks paints basketball

The third installment in Skira and Jack Shainman Gallery’s five-volume overview of American artist Barkley L. Hendricks (1945-2017) explores the artist’s relationship to basketball, which provided a significant source of artistic inspiration throughout his life.

In his Basketball series, Hendricks applied his keen compositional sense and stylish use of color to depictions of the sport’s essential elements: hoops, nets, backboards and, of course, basketballs themselves. In one painting, the image of a basketball about to make its way into a hoop is repeated twice on a round canvas; on another circular canvas, the iconic black ribs of a basketball are rendered in a bold orange to create a minimalistic yet instantly recognizable pattern.

A study in movement and geometry, Hendricks’ paintings offer a uniquely compelling perspective on the sport as an artistic pursuit. This book’s focus on this aspect of Hendricks’ work allows for a detail-oriented study of the artist’s techniques as a painter.