Varnette Honeywood: Birthday

March 16 - 19

Black Art Auction is honored to represent the sale of an iconic image in American popular culture, a painting that was seen weekly in the homes of 35 million Americans on The Cosby Show: Varnette Honeywood’s “Birthday”.  Varnette was a central figure to the art scene in Los Angeles in the latter half of the 20th century, both as an artist and a facilitator of black artists—and especially black women artists—and “Birthday”, painted in 1974,  is arguably her most important work and an image we have all had the pleasure of seeing for many years.

A graduate of Spelman University, Varnette Honeywood began publishing note cards and prints from her original acrylic paintings. In the late 1980’s, a reproduction of Ms. Honeywood’s painting, Birthday appeared in the living room on the set of The Cosby Show across from Senegalese Boy by Archibald John Motley, Jr.

Similarly to Ernie Barnes’, Sugar Shack, which had been featured on the television show, Good Times, Birthday inspired a generation of African-American collectors and art aficionados to display images of Black joy and the beauty of African ancestry on their walls.