Over the course of his life, Barkley L. Hendricks grew to be a widely acclaimed artist.

His paintings are included in collections at such esteemed institutions as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, both in New York City.

In 2023, after his death, Barkley became the first artist of color to have a solo show at the Frick, a museum in New York famed for its collection of European masters.

Barkley, who lived in New London and taught at Connecticut College, was particularly renowned for his realist and postmodern oil portraits of Black Americans.

Although people knew him and his work, they didn’t know the studio where he created his paintings. The space on the second floor of his house in New London wasn’t open to visitors.

A new book provides a peek into his home — which in turn provides a fascinating glimpse into Barkley’s inspiration for his art.

“Barkley L. Hendricks: Piles of Inspiration Everywhere” was created by Susan Hendricks, Barkley’s widow, and fine art photographer David Katzenstein. Katzenstein was one of only two students Barkley ever took on for independent study at Conn College, and they remained friends in the decades that followed. Katzenstein is also the managing editor of the Barkley L.

Hendricks Photography Archive. Susan is the managing director of the estate of Barkley L. Hendricks, honoring the artist’s iconic portrayal of African American identity and culture and expanding his reach through engagement with museums, galleries and cultural institutions.

“Piles of Inspiration Everywhere” was published by Hirmer Publishers, out of Germany, earlier this fall.

The lavish coffee table book, with a sueded cobalt-blue cover, consists of photographs by Katzenstein that take viewers through Barkley’s Victorian house, where most rooms are absolutely stuffed with images and objects he clearly thought might provide inspiration for his art.

In fact, the title “Piles of Inspiration Everywhere” came from something he once told Susan. Susan said Barkley collected everything and anything. He mentioned the phrase “piles of inspiration” once when she was “a little frustrated” at trying to find something in kitchen. Barkley, meanwhile, had such a good memory that he had no trouble recalling where anything was. Susan was looking for something, and Barkley went to a pile, pulled it up maybe 18 or 20 inches and pulled out what Susan had been seeking.

In the book, Susan calls it a cacophony of visuals, and indeed there was everything everywhere all at once, from album covers to hats to pages from art history books.

Some of the photographs in “Piles of

Inspiration Everywhere” are wide views of a space. In one case, walls are covered with lots of figures apparently cut out of magazines, along with everything from wigs to glasses. Another image includes a yard sale sign, a license plate emblazoned with “New London Connecticut,” and life-size cutouts.

In other cases, Katzenstein closes in on objects. He focuses on Barkley’s individual cameras, for instance. He captures Barkley’s writings, laid out for readers to see. Barkley’s words are also used as text throughout the tome; an example: “I feel I’m into everything. More arms than I have, all reaching. Energy! Energy! Energy!”

“Piles of Inspiration Everywhere” essentially tells the story of an artist’s life through his environment.

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How it came about

Not long after Barkley died in April 2017 at age 72, Katzenstein suggested he photo-document the house before Susan started moving things because, she recalled, “there were rooms where you had to kind of go through sideways. It was completely full, like it looks in the book. So (Katzenstein) wanted to document it before I started trying to make space.”

Katzenstein did his first photo shoot about two weeks after Barkley passed away and returned for another five or six sessions over time.

During his life, Barkley didn’t let people into his second-floor studio at his home.

“His muse and his reasons for creating art — that wasn’t really open to dialogue or discussion or, you know, looky-loos. That was his space. I felt honored over the years to be invited into it,” Susan said.

She added, “I think in his mind ... it was nobody’s business until he was ready to show people.”

No one, not even family, had been in every room of the house. Katzenstein is the first person to do that, aside from Susan and Barkley.

“There was a real level of trust and inspiration that we were on this journey together to commemorate and to honor Barkley,” Susan said.

Something new

A project like this hasn’t been done before, according to Susan.

Katzenstein said you can see photos of famous artists’ studios, but not, as far as he and Susan know, depicting an entire living and working environment to this degree.

“The fact that Barkley used a great deal of the house for his inspiration and that it changed and amassed over time was pretty remarkable — and that Susan gave me the entree and the permission just to (move) about and do whatever I wanted visually,” he said.

During the five-year period, Katzenstein would see new things as Susan cleaned up rooms and items were uncovered.

“So I would revisit certain areas and explore it visually in different ways because there were new things to see,” he said.

He said he never moved or touched anything. It was with great respect that he tried to share this artist’s life and environment.

‘Piles of inspiration everywhere’

Susan said one of the things that spurred the idea for the project came from seeing photos of the painter Francis Bacon’s studio.

“Oh my God, it’s chaos. It makes Barkley’s studio look like Zen. Seriously,” she said.

She thought it would be interesting to visit Bacon’s studio to see how he made it work — where was his palette, for instance, or how did he mix his paint? As the book reflects, the amount and breadth of photos and objects that served as inspiration for Barkley’s art is astounding.

Susan states in “Piles of Inspiration Everywhere” that living in this home environment was “thrilling, infuriating and heartbreaking. ... Artistic expression and creativity were everywhere I looked. There was always something to look at, even if it was in a pile. It could be, you know, difficult sometimes living in an environment that is so full. ... It’s like living in an art wonderland.”

As for the inspiration that photographs provided, Susan said it wasn’t as if, say, Barkley saw a CD cover of Fela Kuti — a musician he was a fan of — and the image made its way directly into a painting.

Instead, she said, he might have seen the particular turn of an ankle or the way a woman cocked her head, and that would have inspired him; he would have taped that image up to a canvas and carried that into his painting.

As he left it

Susan has cleaned out some of the rooms, but she hasn’t done much to the studio.

“The last painting he was working on is still on the easel, so the studio is exactly as it was when he left,” she said.

At first, this was a project of documentation, and there was no discussion of a book. Maybe in the fourth year, as the project progressed, the idea of a book developed.

Katzenstein had worked on other books with publisher Hirmer and the same graphic design team, Tracey Shiffman with James Ihira. When Katzenstein had the majority of photos completed, he asked Shiffman to get involved with Susan and him on a book. Shiffman and her assistant Ihira designed the book, which Katzenstein called “extraordinary.”

Susan said: “I knew what I wanted and I knew what I wanted to share of Barkley. I had seen the books that David had done with Tracey and James, and they are beautiful. But this is different.” She said the previous works were about Katzenstein’s photographs at various venues around the world. The Barkley tome focuses on a photographer and artist.

Susan was a little nervous about the book, but when she saw the full-page layouts, she was impressed. She said she couldn’t have asked for a better visual tribute to what it was truly like living with Barkley, and that’s what this is really about.

The reason Shiffman designed the book as a walk through the Hendrickses’ house is because, Susan said, the house was really Barkley’s playground.

“I mean, I lived here successfully for 35 years with him,” Susan said. “I miss him terribly. We had a really wonderful relationship. But it was literally an artist’s playground in every inch of the house.”

The book, Susan said, is a chance for people to get a peek into how Barkley did what he did.

Katzenstein said, “His paintings are very crisp and clean ... yet his environment for creating those bodies of work were quite the opposite.”

Every artist has his own way of working, and the book reflects how Barkley worked.

“It’s very enlightening, I think,” Katzenstein said.