HENRI, Robert (1865-1929)
Birth place: Cincinnati,
OH
Death place: Cincinnati
Addresses: Philadelphia,
1891-99/Paris, France; NYC, c.1901
Profession: Painter
Studied: pupil of Eakins &
Hovenden at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1886-88;
Academy Julian,
Paris, with Bouguereau, Robert-Fleury,
1888-91;
Ecole des Beaux-Arts; Spain; Italy.
Exhibited: National
Academy of Design, 1878; at Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1892-1929
(gold, 1914, 1929); Salons of the Société Nationale
des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1896, 1897, 1899;
Pan-Am. Exposition, Buffalo, 1901
(medal); St. Louis Exposition, 1904
(medal);
Art Institute of Chicago, 1905 (prize); Boston Arts Club, 1907,
1908; Corcoran Gallery, 1907-28;
Arts Club Philadelphia
1909 (gold); Buenos Aires Exposition, 1910 (medal); Armory Show, 1913;
Pan.-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco,
1915 (medal); Society Independent Artists, 1919-29;
Wilmington Society Fine
Arts, 1920 (prize);
"The Ashcan Artists and their New
York," National Museum American Art, 1995
Member: Society of
American Artists, 1903; Associate member of the National Academy of Design,
1904;
National A, 1906; National Institute of Arts
and Letters; Portrait Painters; National Arts Club;
American Painters &
Sculptors; Taos Society Artists; Los Angeles
Modern Art Society;
Society Independent Artists; Boston Arts Club; New
Society Artists; Woodstock Art Association
Work: Luxembourg Gallery,
Paris; Art Institute of Chicago; Carnegie Institute; Gallery Spartanburg,
SC;
Dallas Art Association; Columbus Gallery Fine Art; New
Orleans Art Association; Brooklyn Institute Museum;
at Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts; Carolina Art Association; Kansas
City Art Institute;
San Francisco Institute Art; Metropolitan Museum Art; National Arts Club; Minneapolis
Institute Art; Buffalo
Fine Art Academy; Oberlin College Gallery; Santa Fe
Museum Art & Architecture;
Memphis Museum;
Cincinnati Museum; Detroit Institute; Toledo Museum Art; Milwaukee Art
Institute;
Telfair Academy; Corcoran Gallery
Art; City Art Museum of St. Louis; Los Angeles County Museum of Art;
Wilmington Society Fine Art; Butler Art
Institute; Newark Museum; Decatur
Des Moines Art Academy.
Comments: The outspoken
leader of The Eight," later called the "Ashcan Group"
who were largely
responsible for creating the famous Armory Show of 1913.
He was a highly influential teacher at Art Student’s League; Valtin School;
Ferrar School;
New York School of Art
(previously known as the Chase School);
and his own Henri School, all in
NYC.
His collection of lectures, published as The Art
Spirit (1923) greatly influenced the course of American art
because he
encouraged many students towards independence and personal
expression,
urging them, in particular, to pay close attention to their
feelings and reactions to
subject matter and to translate
these directly into their paintings.
As a teacher he also stressed
self-reliance and self-respect.
In his paintings Henri employed a
slashing, quick attack to record feeling and sensation.
His portraits were of young women, children, and
foreigners.
He painted Indian portraits in San Diego in 1913 and spent the
summer of 1916 in
Santa Fe, painting, followed
there by friends and students.
Sources:
Who's Who, 1927; William
Innes Homer, Robert Henri & His Circle (1969); Mecklenburg, Zurier,
and Snyder, Metropolitan Lives: the Ashcan
Artists and their New
York; Bennard B. Perlman,
The Immortal Eight: American Painting from
Eakins to the Armory Show, 1870-1913
(New York, 1962); Baigell, Dictionary;
Peggy and Harold Samuels, 219-220; Eldredge, et al., Art in New Mexico, 1900-1945, 198; Fink,
American Art at the
Nineteenth-Century Paris Salons, 355; Woodstock Art Association; Falk,
Exhibition Record Series; Curtis, Curtis, and Lieberman, 183."
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