Ernie Barnes (American, 1938-2009) First Impressions, 1982 Acrylic on canvas 36 x 18 inches (91.4 x 45.7 cm) Signed lower right: ERNIE BARNES Property from the Collection of John W. Mecom, Jr. PROVENANCE: The artist; Acquired by the present owner from the above. First Impressions is included in the forthcoming Ernie Barnes catalogue raisonné. We wish to thank Luz Rodriguez for her assistance cataloguing this work. Born in 1938 in Durham, North Carolina, at the height of the Jim Crow era, Barnes's formative years were shaped by segregation in the economically marginalized neighborhood known as "The Bottom." His early exposure to art came through books belonging to his mother's employer, where he first encountered the Old Masters, whose muscular compositions and spiritual intensity left a lifelong imprint. Yet his own subjects would not be mythological or aristocratic; they would be the men and women of his own community, observed through a lens of grace, strength, and humanity. Before fully devoting himself to painting, Barnes played professional football in the National Football League, a background that proved formative to his artistic vision. Reflecting on the profound relationship between sport and his artistic practice, Barnes remarked, "Being an athlete helped me to formulate an analysis of movement, and movement is what I wanted to capture on canvas more than anything else; I can't stand a static canvas" (as quoted in Ernie Barnes: This Is My Art, YouTube, July 28, 2011). Barnes's portrayal of elongated, mannerist forms, drawn from his experiences illustrating teammates, dancers, and musicians from Durham, reveals an awareness that extends beyond mere representation, capturing the emotional essence, intensity, and spirit of his subjects. In First Impressions, Barnes distills a fleeting moment into a charged, suspended vision of gracefulness and anticipation, rendering the figure with characteristic elongation he described as his "neo-mannerist" style. A lone figure leaps into the air with balletic lift, his arms extended toward a spiraling football that hangs midair just beyond his grasp. The vertical composition draws the eye upward along the arc of the body to the object of pursuit. The taut extension of limbs and the subtle backward tilt of the head convey a mixture of urgency and wonder—an encounter that feels as much internal as it is physical. The football, small yet magnetic, becomes a focal point of possibility, its trajectory suggesting both chance and inevitability. The surrounding landscape grounds the scene while heightening its dreamlike quality. Taking place in what is perhaps a vacant, grassy lot, a luminous sky, suffused with soft blues, pinks, and violets, stretches expansively behind the figure, contrasting with the darker band of clouds that gather along the horizon. Below, the earthy terrain and vivid green foliage anchor the composition, providing a sense of place that feels at once specific and universal. The interplay between the solidity of the land and the openness of the sky mirrors the tension between gravity and lift within the figure itself. Less about the outcome than the charged moment of reaching, wanting, and waiting, Barnes captures the fragile instance between effort and arrival. Infused with a personal athletic sensitivity and clarity, Barnes invites the viewer to dwell within the moment. First Impressions is housed in one of Barnes's signature artist-made frames, constructed from distressed wood salvaged from the picket fence of his childhood home—a personal tribute to his father and a grounding motif in his later practice. This intimate gesture underscores the artist's continual effort to bridge the deeply personal with the broadly symbolic. The present work comes from the personal collection of John W. Mecom Jr., a close friend and patron of the artist for over 40 years. Having made history as the youngest team owner to win the Indianapolis 500 at age 27, Mecom later became the founding owner of the New Orleans Saints and spent his decades-long career immersed in the world of American sports. Mecom later commissioned Barnes to create the monumental work, Sandlot Saints in 1983, which depicts a variation of this same figure. HID12401132022 © 2026 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved www.HA.com/TexasAuctioneerLicenseNotice

The artist; Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Condition report available upon request.
Framed Dimensions 42.5 X 25 Inches