Geoffrey Hendricks
Sky Boots, 1965
acrylic on leather work boots
10 × 12 × 15 inches (25.40 × 30.48 × 38.10 cm)
GH1020

provenance: the Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

Sky Boots, 1965, were made from a pair of work boots found by Hendricks in the barn of his newly acquired house on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia.  Hendricks often painted the sky on everyday objects like button-down shirts, towels, pillowcases, window shades, shovels, and road signs, pointing to both an intimacy and performativity that were integral to his practice. Sky Boots is Hendricks’s earliest sky-painted object, and the precursor to editioned bronzes of the same subject (made from a separate pair of work boots found in New York City). This sculpture was included in MoMA’s circulating exhibition “Contemporary American Still Life” in 1966, and showed alongside works by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Jane Freilicher, and Claes Oldenburg.

Geoffrey Hendricks
Sky Ladder #43, ca.1980
wooden ladder, 14 double-sided watercolors, string, 3 tin ex votos
164 × 21 ½ × 3 ½ inches (416.56 × 54.61 × 8.89 cm)
GH1002

provenance: the Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

Hendricks created numerous Sky Ladder pieces for exhibitions, with each ladder sourced in the vicinity of the show’s locale. These ladders acted as display systems for recently painted sky watercolors and other objects suspended by string between their rungs. Sky Ladder #43 is particularly striking for its height, its double-sided watercolors, and the addition of metal ex votos shaped as hands and feet. The ladder reaches over 14 feet high, and is installed as it had originally shown in Europe and the US, freestanding in the space so viewers can see each side as it reaches to the sky. Italian ex votos were traditionally bought by penitents to cure ailments. After the ailment abated the metal object was donated to the church as a thanksgiving. The ex votos in Sky Ladder #43 would have implied that one’s feet and hands would be protected when climbing up to the sky. Sky Ladder #43 was also presented at Hendricks’ memorial service at the Judson Church in 2018.

Geoffrey Hendricks
Sky/Slate Wall, 1999 – 2023
watercolor on paper with slate roofing tile
192 × 120 × 1 inches (487.68 × 304.80 × 2.54 cm)
GH1021

provenance: the Geoffrey Hendricks Estate

Geoffrey Hendricks first envisioned a Sky/Slate Wall after his historic townhouse in New York was re-roofed in the 1990s. Seeing the original roof slates stacked to be discarded, he noticed that they had markings that could be read as evocative of sky imagery.  He became interested in the marks resulting from their function as a barrier or membrane between home and sky, the slates having many days and nights in conversation with the sky. Hendricks then paired sky watercolors in similar size and orientation to intersperse between the slates, creating a large skyscape, a configuration largely intuited and changing for each iteration. Hendricks developed and exhibited Sky/Slate Walls a number of times, each time with different slates, usually sourced locally and with watercolors he made on his travels. True to Hendricks’ process, this iteration (made with the original slates from his home), was composed to fit the exhibition space with Sur Rodney (Sur), Hendricks spouse and installation and performance collaborator from 1995-2018.