Ernie Barnes: Americans In Focus

Below is a video featuring the amazing artist Ernie Barnes. Ernie Barnes hails from my hometown of Durham, NC and is best known for the print “Sugar Shack” which was featured on the cover of Marvin Gaye’s classic, soulful opus, “I Want You”. Enjoy!

I meant to do this post right after the Uptown Saturday Night post but it slipped my mind. The original cover of USN was based on the cover of a Marvin Gaye album (which I use as the cover of the sample set) which was drawn by Ernie Barnes. Barnes is, along with Caravaggio, JM Turner and Frederic Remington (That Remington is owned by my College, I'll steal it before I graduate), one of my favorite artists of all time. His work, to me, represents what modern art should be and not that grotesque Picasso bullshit (except for Guernica, which is just incredible) . He is most famous for his sports based art, which is appropriate considering that he was an AFL player. Above are just a few of my favorite Barnes paintings.