Background

Robert Henri was born on June 25, 1865, in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. He was the son of John and Theresa Henri; the family, in which French, English, and Irish blood was mingled, had lived for several generations in Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio.

Education

Robert was educated in Cincinnati, Denver, and New York schools, Henri began the study of art at the age of twenty, and in 1886 entered the school of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. After two years of training there in drawing and modeling under Thomas Pollock Anschutz he went to Paris in 1888 with Charles Grafly and other students, to enroll himself at the Julian Academy under Bouguereau and Fleury. He also studied for a time in the École des Beaux Arts but chafing under the academic rigidity and dryness of the schools, he sought to develop his artistic personality in independent work outside of them, and traveled in Brittany, Italy, and Spain.

Career

In 1891 Robert Henri returned to the United States and settled in Philadelphia, where he became instructor in the Women’s School of Design, and was a conspicuous member of a lively little coterie of realists comprising such men as John Sloan, W. J. Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, E. W. Redfield, and Elmer Schofield. In 1894 he and Glackens were sharing a studio. Henri then went back to Paris and taught a class there for about two years. In 1899 he exhibited at the Paris Salon a street scene, “Snow, ” which was bought by the government for the Luxembourg Museum. He then passed the summer of 1899 at Concarneau, then returned to America, where he made his home in New York, having his studio in an old house in East Fifty- eighth street, overlooking the East River. He taught successively and successfully at the Veltin school, the Chase school, the Henri school, the Ferrar school, and the Art Students’ League, establishing a great reputation by his zeal, his personal methods, and his faculty for encouraging and inspiring his pupils. He laid emphasis on visual honesty, the avoidance of aping other artists’ styles, and the supreme importance of being true to one’s self.

Between 1906 and 1914 Henri traveled extensively, painting portraits and character studies in many parts of the world - Irish and Gipsy types, Down-East Yankees, the Indians of California and New Mexico. In 1908 the group was organized for the purpose of holding exhibitions; it was composed of Henri, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, George Luks, Maurice Prendergast, Everett Shinn, W. J. Glackens, Ernest Lawson.

A book entitled The Art Spirit, published in 1923, was compiled from Henri’s scattered essays and class-room notes. It contains much that is stimulating and spontaneous in the way of generalizations. Like his painting, his writing is sketchy; but it has the vitality of candid impressions. This quality of naturaness and spontaneity is likewise the chief merit of Henri’s brisk and dashing character studies. It is true that they are sketchy, but they pteserve the freedom and freshness that are so quikly to be impaired by overelaboration. Above all they have vitality, a quality so momentum that its presence atones for many defects. During the last part of his life he had a summer home, “Boycott House, ” in County Mayo, Ireland, where he enjoyed the trout fishing and was wont to spend a part of each day at the sport. In the autumn of 1928, while on the way to New York from Ireland, he became ill; on landing he was taken to St. Luke’s Hospital, where he died after a sickness of more than seven months.

Achievements

• Robert Henri was a leading figure of the Ashcan School of American realism. That his works are widely appreciated is shown by the fact that Henri’s works are represented in more than thirty public art museums. In 1929, when the Arts Council of New York sought the opinion of American artists, collectors, dealers and museum officials as to the “hundred most important living artists, ” Henri was one of the three whose names were given first place.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Art Spirit

    (A classic work of advice, criticism, and inspiration for ...)

  • The Art Spirit (Icon Editions)

    ( In this book are the essential beliefs and theories of ...)

  • My People: The Portraits of Robert Henri

    (art book)

Personality

Robert Henri was a radical by nature, but not by any means an unreasonable insurgent.

Quotes from others about the person

• “Henri had learned to respect plain totality in art, whether in Hals and Rembrandt or in Hogarth. ” - Morton Dauwen Zabel

Connections

In 1898 Robert Henri married Linda Craige of Philadelphia. She died in 1906. In 1908 he married Marjorie Organ of New York, herself an artist.

Father:

John Henri

Mother:

Theresa Henri

Spouse:

Linda (Craige) Henri

Spouse:

Marjorie (Organ) Henri