Barnes’ World-Renowned Work Is Stroke of Genius

Ernie Barnes had the body of a football player. But he always had the soul of an artist.

So although he was drawing interest from more than two dozen college recruiters in the mid-1950s as a hulking offensive lineman and track star for Hillside High in Durham, N.C., what interested Barnes most was painting.

And although he was popular enough to be elected captain of his football team and good enough to win the state shotput championship, Barnes remained frustrated because, as a black man in the South, he wasn’t allowed to set foot in a museum or art gallery.

People would say to him: “Why would you want to come in here if you’re black?”

When he asked why one of his paintings had been rejected by the North Carolina Museum of Art, Barnes was told: “Your people don’t express themselves that way.”

Barnes has gone on to express himself well enough to become a world-renowned artist. His distinctive touch on canvas has earned him countless commissions and honors.

His work, “The Beauty of the Ghetto,” was on national tour for almost two decades. His “A Dream Unfolds,” commissioned by the NBA to commemorate its 50th anniversary, hangs in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Barnes was commissioned official artist of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. He did a mural for actor Sylvester Stallone titled “The Metamorphosis of Rocky.” Barnes did a mural for Seton Hall that earned him six figures. Those collecting Barnes’ work range from Bill Cosby to Norman Lear to Ethel Kennedy.

Barnes’ latest masterpiece, a painting of boxer Oscar De La Hoya commissioned by Laker owner Jerry Buss, was unveiled Wednesday night at De La Hoya’s annual charity dinner.

“Since I was a child,” said Barnes, who lives in Studio City, “the only vision I’ve had of myself was as an artist. Even though I was always a big guy, I didn’t see myself as a football player.”

Others, however, didn’t see things quite like Barnes.

“In the community I grew up in,” Barnes said, “people didn’t understand a kid who liked to draw. My own father once said to me, ‘Who is going to feed you if you become a painter?’ I didn’t have a lot of role models in my community.”

He had plenty of role models in football and he emulated them. Good enough at North Carolina College to be named to the All-Time Black College Football Team, Barnes was drafted in the 10th round by the then-Baltimore Colts in 1959.

But he was always thinking beyond football.

After signing with the Colts for $6,500, plus a $500 signing bonus, Barnes was invited to watch the team’s championship game against the New York Giants.

Barnes sat behind the Colts’ bench. When he got home, his hands sketched what his eyes had seen. The result was “The Bench,” a unique view of pro football from the perspective of those on the sidelines.

Cut by the Colts at the end of his first training camp, Barnes wound up in the new American Football League, playing five seasons with the New York Titans, the Los Angeles-San Diego Chargers and the Denver Broncos.

By 1965, his ankle cracked, his feelings for the game soured by what he calls “politics,” Barnes was ready to move on.

But where? He wanted to devote himself full-time to being an artist.

“But I had a fear, big time, that I couldn’t make a living at it,” Barnes said.

Fortunately, he found an influential sponsor who believed in him: New York Jet owner Sonny Werblin. Werblin gave Barnes a $1,000 advance and told him to bring his work to a New York gallery.

Nervous and unprepared for such a potentially defining moment, Barnes attempted to bring his canvases across town on a crowded subway car. At one point, he was forced to hand several paintings off to helpful commuters to prevent his life’s work from being crushed.

But Barnes knew it had all been worthwhile when Werblin, after enlisting several critics to assess Barnes’ work, told him, “No more football for you, young man.”

Asked by Werblin what he had made in football the previous season, Barnes told him $13,500. Werblin offered Barnes $14,500 to spend the next six months turning out as many paintings as he could.

Barnes took it from there, expanding his subject matter far beyond football, but leaving a lasting impact from his sport.

“The explosive energy and hulking power of the football player images made an indelible impression upon me,” said John Stuart Evans, director of New York’s Grand Central Art Galleries. “Over the years, I found these images etched as sharply in my memory as if I had viewed them only yesterday.”

Buss, who has commissioned several Barnes’ works, is amazed at what the artist produced when hired to try his hand at hockey on canvas.

“He had never seen hockey in person,” Buss said. “But after going to his first game, he captured the feel of the sport.”

Who knows, some day Barnes’ work might be good enough to appear in the North Carolina Museum of Art.