![]() ![]() One of Barnes’s best-known works is The Sugar Shack (which he originally painted in 1971 and updated in 1976), a sensual and lively scene of Black men and women dancing to a jazz band in a nightclub. She worked for Barnes over the next 21 years. “In his paintings, you can truly feel the movement of the bodies, even in his genre works.” Rodriguez met Barnes when she was working in the news department of the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee for the 1984 Summer Olympics, during which Barnes was appointed the games’ official sports artist. “His art captures an athlete’s mental and physical energy,” she explained. Luz Rodriguez, Barnes’s former assistant and the current manager of his estate, emphasized that Barnes’s artistic expression was enhanced by playing sports. The artist began framing his paintings with distressed wood as a tribute, even placing one on his family’s picket fence, which his father had always kept well maintained. Yet just weeks before this major achievement, Barnes suffered a major personal loss when his father passed away. In November 1966, Werblin hosted Barnes’s debut solo exhibition at the Grand Central Art Galleries in Manhattan, and the show sold out. Later that year, Barnes met New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin, who was so impressed by Barnes and his art that he paid for Barnes to bring his work to New York. During a 1965 game with the Roughriders, Barnes injured his right foot, forcing him to retire from professional sports. He went on to play for the New York Titans, the San Diego Chargers, and the Denver Broncos before landing with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League. In 1959, Barnes was drafted by the Baltimore Colts, who were world champions at the time. Thanks in part to the coach’s support, Barnes took up football and became the team captain by his senior year of high school.īarnes attended the all-Black North Carolina College at Durham (now called North Carolina Central University), where he majored in art on a full athletic scholarship for football. ![]() Sensing that the young student needed some encouragement, the coach shared how sports could both strengthen him physically and improve his outlook on life. ![]() One day at school, an instructor and former athlete discovered Barnes quietly sketching on his own. His tenure as an athlete began when he was a young teen. Before Barnes could leave his mark on the art world, though, sports became a predominant passion. ![]()
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