Figurative Painting of Black Women Sells For $75,000 at Chicago Auction

Figurative Painting of Black Women Sells For $75,000 at Chicago Auction

The African American figurative painter, Ernie Barnes' 1976 oil painting, "The Grapevine", celebrating the sisterhood of a community of Black women has sold for $75,000 at an auction that took place at Hindman in Chicago.

The painting depicts an animated scene with six Black women of different sizes and adornments, standing together and engaged in conversation. With the women putting their hands on their hips, folding them behind their back, or folding them across their chest, and brown shopping bags placed at their feet, the scene connotes that the women have gathered to spill some hot gist or get the scoop of happenings, justifying the painting's title — "The Grapevine".

Barnes who was born in 1938 painted from his experience living in the segregated American South in Durham, North Carolina and he was particularly inspired by music and African American life of the time, thus his work though having universal appeal, came from a personal place.

A trip down the history of the painting revealed that it was acquired by the legendary gospel and soul singer, Mavis Staples, the same year Barnes made it. The singer had kept the painting displayed in her home for the past forty years before putting it up for sale this year at Hindman, in Chicago,  where it was eventually sold for $75,000, a record auction figure for Barnes, who had died in 2009. The painting was sold at the Post-War and Contemporary Art sale of the auction house.

According to Hindman's description note for "The Grapevine" and a second painting ("Singer") by Barnes, also purchased directly from the painter by Staples and sold at the Post-War and Contemporary Art sale, “Ms. Staples met Barnes around 1976 at a Staple Singers’ show in San Francisco. After the show, he went backstage to introduce himself, invited them to his studio on that Sunday, and on Monday the family picked out which paintings they wanted to buy. That would be their only meeting.”

"The Singer" sold for $34,375 against an estimate of ($15,000-$25,000) at the auction. The 1976 painting depicts a formally dressed Black man in the soulful moment of performing a song with his eyes closed on a dimly lit stage with a single bulb hanging from the cracked ceiling providing the scanty illumination.

Staples, via her manager Adam Ayers shed more light on the journey and essence of the paintings in correspondence with CULTURE TYPE. She disclosed that she had selected the paintings because she felt a personal connection to them. She said she “saw herself” in the gathering of women in “The Grape Vine,” and “Singer” reminded her of a singer she knew named Chicago Joe. Eventually, she nicknamed the painting “Gospel Joe,” Ayers said.

Staples further revealed she had paid $1,500 for “The Grape Vine” and because she didn't have the full money at the time, she made payments to Barnes to complete the purchase while he held them until she could pay them off before he sent them to her.

"The Grapevine" pre-auction estimation had been $20,000-$30,000 and the eventual selling price overshot this estimate tremendously, signaling the projections, as discussed in this Aworanka article, that the art market is primed for a splurge on contemporary African art, art by Black people, African-American art, and art by the African diaspora. 

Barnes's previous record auction sale had been the basketball painting "Two-on-Two" which sold for $69,300 at Sotheby's New York last December. 

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