Edward Lamson Henry

January 12, 1841 (age 78)

Charleston, Charleston County, United States of America

He began studying painting, there and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In 1862, he returned to the United States, where he served as a clerk on a Union transport ship in the American Civil War. After the war he resumed his painting, with many works inspired by his experiences in the war. He moved into the prestigious Tenth Street Studio Building in Greenwich Village, where Winslow Homer also had a studio. In 1869, Henry was elected to the National Academy of Design, New New York As a painter of colonial and early American themes and incidents of rural life, he displays a quaint humor. Among his best-known compositions are some of early railroad travel, incidents of stage coach and canal boat journeys, rendered with much detail on a minute scale. Because of his great attention to detail, his paintings were treated by contemporaries as authentic historical reconstructions. Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, and assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray". Henry"s "historical fictions" often portrayed an idyllic and agrarian America, one relatively unperturbed by Civil War or by the growing phenomena of industrialization, urbanization and immigration that were taking place during the period in which he painted. Henry"s paintings were extremely popular throughout his life. Art professor William T. Oedel wrote of his legacy, "Perhaps no artist played so consistently and so durably to the American cult of nostalgia in the last quarter of the 19th century as Edward Lamson Henry.".

Edward Lamson Henry

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painter

Background

Henry, Edward Lamson was born on January 12, 1841 in Charleston, South Carolina, United States.

Education

In 1860 he went to Paris, where he studied with Charles Gleyre and Gustave Courbet, at roughly the same time as Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Frédéric Bazille, and Alfred Sisley.

Career

He began studying painting, there and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. In 1862, he returned to the United States, where he served as a clerk on a Union transport ship in the American Civil War. After the war he resumed his painting, with many works inspired by his experiences in the war.

He moved into the prestigious Tenth Street Studio Building in Greenwich Village, where Winslow Homer also had a studio.

In 1869, Henry was elected to the National Academy of Design, New New York As a painter of colonial and early American themes and incidents of rural life, he displays a quaint humor.

Among his best-known compositions are some of early railroad travel, incidents of stage coach and canal boat journeys, rendered with much detail on a minute scale. Because of his great attention to detail, his paintings were treated by contemporaries as authentic historical reconstructions.

Henry acquired an extensive collection of antiques, old photos, and assorted Americana, from which he researched his paintings. carelessly drawn or out of keeping with the time it was supposed to portray".

Henry"s "historical fictions" often portrayed an idyllic and agrarian America, one relatively unperturbed by Civil War or by the growing phenomena of industrialization, urbanization and immigration that were taking place during the period in which he painted. Henry"s paintings were extremely popular throughout his life. Art professor William T. Oedel wrote of his legacy, "Perhaps no artist played so consistently and so durably to the American cult of nostalgia in the last quarter of the 19th century as Edward Lamson Henry.".

Achievements

Edward Lamson Henry has been listed as a notable artist by Marquis Who's Who.

Membership

Henry was a member of the New-York Historical Society.

Connections

Married Frances Livingston Wells, June 1875.

Spouse:: Frances Livingston Wells

Main Photo