At heart Daniel Jones Jersey , Ernie Barnes the professional football player was always Ernie Barnes the artist.

He ended up painting vivid and highly acclaimed images from the playing field and from African-American life. He’s most famous for ”Sugar Shack,” which shows African-Americans dancing at the Durham Armory. Marvin Gaye used a version of it for an album cover, and a print of it appeared in the closing credits of the sitcom ”Good Times.”

Now, an exhibit has opened in his home state titled “The North Carolina Roots of Artist Ernie Barnes.” The exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History includes 38 paintings by Barnes, many unseen by the public until now, along with several pieces of memorabilia.

It’s the first exhibit of Barnes’ artwork in 11 years, and the first since he died at age 70 in 2009 in Los Angeles. It continues through March 3.

Barnes never considered football his true calling. From his childhood, he was drawn to art. In his 1995 autobiography, ”From Pads to Palette,” he wrote, ”Throughout my five seasons in the arena of professional football, I remained at the deepest level of my being an artist.”

But he played professionally from 1960 to 1964, signing first with the Baltimore Colts and then with the Titans of New York, the San Diego Chargers and the Denver Broncos. His sports connections led to his first exhibit through the support of New York Jets owner Sonny Werblin. And Barnes credited football with helping him develop the elongation technique for which he’s known.

An art instructor told him ”to pay attention to what my body felt like in movement,” Barnes once said. ”And when I did that, it was an elongated feeling. … I hate to think, had I not played sports Quincy Williams II Jersey , what my work would look like.”

He also spoke of how the ”dehumanization” of professional football played out in his art. ”I painted until I exhausted the hate,” he said, according to comments provided by his estate.

Troy Vincent, the NFL’s vice president of operations, is probably the largest collector of Barnes’ art and someone in whom Barnes confided about his love-hate relationship with football. Vincent estimates that he owns just shy of 30 Barnes’ paintings, most of them commissioned and never seen by the public.

In a phone interview, Vincent said that he and his wife ”didn’t classify it as black art. He happens to be African-American, but it’s not black art. It’s art.”

At the time of Barnes’ death, Paul Von Blum, an art history and African American studies professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, called him one of the premier figurative artists of his era.

Barnes, who was born in 1938 in Durham during the Jim Crow era, graduated from what’s now North Carolina Central University. His painting, ”Homecoming,” shows a marching band in Durham with U.S. 15-501 signs in the background.

”Ernie said when he was growing up, the high school band used to come down from the segregated area and make the turn into the black community Ryquell Armstead Jersey , and the band would kick it up right there,” Luz Rodriguez, his longtime assistant and estate trustee said last week in Raleigh before the exhibit opened. ”So that’s what he painted.”

”Sugar Shack” came from Barnes’ memories growing up in Durham, Rodriguez said. His mother had told the 13-year-old Barnes that ”they don’t do Christian things there” so of course he had to sneak in to find out what was happening, she said.

Actor and comedian Eddie Murphy owns the painting now, exhibit curator Katie Edwards said. A second version that Barnes painted is part of the North Carolina museum exhibit.

Barnes could bring to life ”the hopes and dreams of what could be – families together, strong men, strong women, the true representation of the godly family,” Vincent said. Barnes was able to ”share our dark past yet articulate in color what the future could be – the proudness of our history, the proudness of our future. Ernie encapsulated all of that.”

—

BEREA, Ohio (AP) — John Dorsey only traded text messages during the first round of this year’s NFL draft.Cleveland’s wheeling-dealing general manager, who has overturned his roster with numerous transactions over the past year, was unable to pull off a deal to get into the first round Thursday night and will start the second day still holding onto his second round pick.It’s not that he didn’t try.Meeting with reporters following a long night of working the phones, Dorsey said there were three players he was willing to move up and get, but the asking price to complete the deal was beyond his comfort zone.“I thought the compensation was too rich to move that far,” Dorsey said. “I think we’re in a position now Gardner Minshew II Jersey , maybe you exercise a degree of patience in this and just see. We’ll start working tomorrow, and we’re always going to work at this thing to see if we can get up there, but the compensation package was just too much for us as an organization.”And the three players he was after?“They’re all gone,” he said.Dorsey’s decision not to package the No. 49 overall pick with any of his other seven selections for a higher spot was somewhat surprising, given his track record.He’s made 17 trades — including a recent blockbuster for wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. — since taking over the Browns in December 2017, bucking their laughingstock status and making them one of the league’s most intriguing squads.Dorsey was willing to trade up for the right player, but only for the right price. However, he stayed on the sideline while six other teams moved up in the first round. One of them was the rival Pittsburgh Steelers, who jumped from No. 20 to 10 and took Michigan linebacker Devin Bush.The Steelers sent the 20th pick, No. 52 and a third-rounder to Denver to climb.Dorsey said he couldn’t find the right bargain for the Browns without sacrifice.“It takes two and every time we were trying, they’d kind of say, ‘Well, you need to kick in a little bit more,’ and I wasn’t willing to do that.” Dorsey said.In his six previous drafts as a GM in Cleveland and Kansas City, Dorsey made 18 trades involving picks. So far, he’s only been an interested spectator but that will soon change.Dorsey indicated he’ll be just as aggressive during Friday’s second and third rounds.“You explore those options and then you see if you can get up there at the right price or you stay patient or you even kick back,” he said. “Now we can really get into the exercise of moving up and moving back Christian Wilkins Jersey , and we will actively be working the phones all day, all evening tomorrow.”The Browns will likely explore the market for a cornerback as only one has been taken and there several top-rated players available, including Washington’s Byron Murphy, LSU’s Greedy Williams, Temple’s Rock Ya-Sin, Notre Dame’s Julian Love and Michigan State’s Justin Layne, who is from Cleveland.This was the first time since 2008 — and eighth overall — that the Browns didn’t have a first-round selection.The outsider’s role is a new one in Cleveland, where fans have grown accustomed to early picks, and so many bad ones.After selecting Myles Garrett and Baker Mayfield with the No. 1 overall picks in each of the past two drafts, the prize — or punishment — for going 1-31 in two seasons under former coach Hue Jackson, the Browns came in as one of four teams without a first-round pick.They willingly gave it up when Dorsey stunned the league last month by trading the No. 17 pick to the New York Giants as part of the deal for Beckham, whose arrival has sparked wild expectations in Cleveland. The Giants used that selection on Clemson defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence.And while he’s not pulled off a deal yet in this draft, Dorsey is plenty proud of his most recent one.“I’m very happy to have Odell Beckham as the 17th pick in the 2019 draft,” he said, smiling.