Ernest Eugene Barnes, Jr.

Ernie Barnes, a North Carolina Central alumnus, played in the NFL and then became a painter whose elongated figures defined a visual language of Black life, including the Sugar Shack image used on a Marvin Gaye album.

NFL player turned widely collected painter.
Creator of The Sugar Shack and official artist of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Inducted into the National Black College Alumni Hall of Fame in 2009.