Ernie Barnes’s largest painting is on rare display at Andrew Kreps Gallery’s stand at Art Basel Miami Beach, thanks to an unlikely consignor.
Metamorphosis of Rocky (1988) is 20ft long and depicts scenes representing the fictional boxer Rocky Balboa’s trials during the first four Rocky movies. The work was commissioned by none other than Sylvester Stallone, the actor who plays Rocky and has dabbled in creating art himself.
The gallery’s director, Alex Fitzgerald, says Stallone commissioned the painting directly from Barnes after seeing the artist’s poster designs for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Barnes, a professional football player turned artist, spent 18 months on the painting for an actor perhaps best known for playing a professional athlete.
Winning work: a detail from Metamorphosis of Rocky, featuring the famous fictional boxer Liliana Mora
“It speaks to the fact that when Ernie first started his career as a painter, he didn’t find support within the traditional artistic structure or gallery system,” Fitzgerald tells The Art Newspaper. “It was the people in the entertainment, music and athletic industries that supported him. He was his own dealer and advocate.”
At the stand on Friday afternoon, the first day the fair opened to the public, dozens of visitors stopped in front of the painting to take pictures. Several were wearing Barnes merchandise. The painting does not have a set price; according to Fitzgerald, Stallone may donate it to a museum.
“Rocky occupies such a large space in American popular culture,” gallery founder Andrew Kreps says. “I think the impulse was that [Stallone] just wanted [for the painting] to go into the world.”
Stallone has strong ties to South Florida. The actor studied drama at the University of Miami, and he has said that he would relocate to Florida permanently after living here part-time for years.
The market for Barnes’s work has ramped up since his death in 2009—culminating in his 1976 painting The Sugar Shack selling for $15.3m (with fees) at Christie’s in 2022, over 100 times more than the low end of its presale estimate. During his lifetime, Barnes sold work to some of the US’s biggest stars, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Diana Ross and Harry Belafonte. A second edition of The Sugar Shack is owned by Eddie Murphy, who said he purchased it at Marvin Gaye’s estate sale. The painting may be best known for its inclusion in the 1970s sitcom Good Times.