Artist Ernie Barnes 1938-2009 (GOOD TIMES PICTURE)

CaliChampNo.1

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ebarnes11.jpg


REST IN PEACE!!

Co-sign. :smh:
 

KingTaharqa

Greatest Of All Time
BGOL Investor
R.I.P.

Dude was a living legend. I got to meet him in Durham, NC in 2001 and he was very cool and humble. Growing up we always had his paintings on the walls of our house. Very big loss that I'm sad to hear.
 

DV8ed

Rising Star
BGOL Investor
I'm posting this from my phone, so sorry if a repost.


Ernie Barnes is probably best known for his painting"The Sugar Shack" as seen on a Marvin Gaye album and on the closing credits to "Good Times".


http://www.erniebarnesart.com/sugarshack.html

African American painter Ernie Barnes dead at 70
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

(04-28) 20:38 PDT Los Angeles, CA (AP) --
Ernie Barnes, an African American figurative painter and former lineman for the San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos, has died. He was 70.

Barnes died Monday at a hospital of complications from a rare blood disorder, his longtime assistant and friend Luz Rodriguez said. She would not elaborate on the disorder.
His famous "Sugar Shack" dance scene appeared on the cover of Marvin Gaye's "I Want You" in 1976 and the closing credits of the "Good Times" television show.
"It was how he recalled the juke joints he saw growing up as a kid," Rodriguez said. "That's his experience. He mastered the movement and energy and the spirit of it all. Kids try to copy it and they just don't hit it, try as they might."
His paintings are characterized by elongated figures with their eyes closed and many capture the dynamism of sports.
"Ernie Barnes is one of the premier figurative artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries," said Paul Von Blum, an art history and African American studies professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. "His richly detailed paintings and drawings chronicling the lives of people have made a profound contribution to the contemporary history of American art."
As a boy growing up in Durham, N.C., Barnes followed his mother to work at the home of a local attorney where he admired the lawyer's art books, Rodriguez said. As a young man, Barnes visited the newly desegregated North Carolina Museum of Art and asked to see paintings by Negro artists, Rodriguez said.
"He felt his art had to educate and uplift and create a transformative understanding of humanity," Rodriguez said.
Barnes played football at North Carolina College, a historically black school now called North CarolinaCentralUniversity. He played from 1960-1964 for the New York Titans, San Diego Chargers and Denver Broncos.
"Throughout my five seasons in the arena of professional football, I remained at the deepest level of my being � an artist," he wrote in his 1995 autobiography, "From Pads to Palette."
In 1965, New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin recognized Barnes' passion for art and paid him for one season so he could focus on painting, according to Barnes' biography posted on this Web site. A year later, Barnes had his first solo exhibition at Grand Central Art Galleries in Manhattan and retired from football.
Barnes was commissioned by the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Committee, the NBA and by entertainment superstars such as Kanye West and Sylvester Stallone.
He is survived by his wife, brother, two sons and three daughters.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/04/28/sports/s203650D06.DTL
 

RunawaySlave

Zeitgeist
BGOL Investor
Great Artwork. Did not realize he was ex-NFL as well.
Brotha lived a full life and left quite an imprint on
many an artist.

RIP brotha
 

dasmybikepunk

Wait for it.....
OG Investor
:(RIP....wow must say I became an artist because of this dude one of the first pieces I tried to imitate as a youth was the Good Times picture JJ was painting.
 
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