This is a portrait of Hendricks’ good friend George Jules Taylor, or ‘Jules’ as he was known to Hendricks. In the work we see Jules naked but for a pair of round glasses, smoking a hash pipe, while reclining on a luxurious white couch. His nonchalant coolness—with his head tilt and carefully angled pipe—seems to emanate from somewhere deep inside, making his nudity in this portrait seem almost unremarkable.
Jules is portrayed as dramatically sensual—heightened by the interplay of color, pattern and texture—and elegantly and coolly balanced across the heavy wooden seat. The unique composition helps to emphasize his quiet self-confidence and flamboyant personality for which he was known. Hendricks once said he enjoyed Jules’ fashion sensibility, his sharp intellect and their shared sense of humor. Their friendship, which the artist described as a ‘bromance’, lasted until Jules’ death in 1984, ten years after this painting was made.
🎨 Barkley L. Hendricks, Family Jules: NNN (No Naked Niggahs), 1974 © Estate of Barkley L. Hendricks. Courtesy of the artist’s estate and Jack Shainman Gallery, NY.
