Background
He grew up in East Orange, New Jersey outside New York City and Evanston, Illinois in the Chicago area, attending public schools through high school.
He grew up in East Orange, New Jersey outside New York City and Evanston, Illinois in the Chicago area, attending public schools through high school.
Later, he studied at Saint John"s College in Annapolis, Maryland and the Art Institute in Chicago. In the late 1940s, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy. His teacher, the expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka, was to have a lasting influence on Embry"s work.
During his adolescent years in the Chicago area, Embry developed a keen interest in avant-garde literature, music and art In 1947 Embry decided to devote his life to painting and, for the next 15 years until the early 1960s, embarked on a nomadic artistic career which would take him from San Francisco to New York, to post-war Europe, as well as Turkey and North Africa. Amongst the countries in Europe where he took up temporary residence were Italy, France, Germany, Spain, England and Sweden.
lieutenant was the Mediterranean culture and climate that struck a chord with his heart and his artistic imagination, and in particular, Greece where he returned frequently.
Throughout much of his life, Embry suffered from severe bouts of mental illness. In the mid-1960s, after having sought medical treatment at the Shepphard Pratt Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, he made that city his permanent residence.
He continued to live and paint in Baltimore until the last weeks of his life. After a series of strokes, he died February 17, 1981 and was buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
In the late 1990s, the heirs to the Norris Embry Estate donated the copyright to a trust which is mandated to protect and promote the copyright worldwide.
The copyright is administered by the British-based company Norris Embry Artworks Collection Limited, of which Warren Wilmot Williams is the managing director The website is an ever-growing resource on the life and works of Norris Embry, and a visual showcase for many of Embry"s most outstanding artworks drawn from public and private collections throughout the world. Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Doctor of Medicine
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, District of Columbia Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
The Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas
The Newark Museum, Newark, New York
University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, Kentucky.