Robert Henri
Encyclopedia
Robert Henri was an American painter and teacher. He was a leading figure of the Ashcan School
in art.
Robert Henri was born Robert Henry Cozad in Cincinnati, Ohio
to Theresa Gatewood Cozad of Malden, Virginia
and John Jackson Cozad, a gambler and real estate developer. Henri had a brother, Johnny, and was a distant cousin of the noted American painter Mary Cassatt
. In 1871, Henri's father founded the town of Cozaddale, Ohio
. In 1873, the family moved west to Nebraska
, where they founded the town of Cozad
.
In October 1882, Henri's father became embroiled in a dispute with a rancher, Alfred Pearson, over the right to pasture cattle on land claimed by the family. When the dispute turned physical, Cozad shot Pearson fatally with a pistol. Cozad was eventually cleared of wrongdoing, but the mood of the town turned against him. He fled to Denver, Colorado
, and the rest of the family followed shortly afterwards. In order to disassociate themselves from the scandal, family members changed their names. The father became known as Richard Henry Lee, and his sons posed as adopted children under the names Frank Southern and Robert Earl Henri .
In 1883, the family moved to New York City
, then to Atlantic City, New Jersey
, where the young artist completed his first paintings.
in Philadelphia, where he studied under Thomas Anshutz
, a protege of Thomas Eakins
. In 1888, he traveled to Paris
to study at the Académie Julian
, where he studied under William-Adolphe Bouguereau
and embraced Impressionism
. With time, he was admitted into the École des Beaux Arts. He visited Brittany
and Italy
during this period.
By the end of 1891, he returned to Philadelphia, studying under Robert Vonnoh
at the Academy. In 1892, he began teaching at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women
.
In Philadelphia, Henri began to attract a group of followers who met in his studio to discuss art and culture, including several illustrators for the Philadelphia Press
newspaper who would become known as the 'Philadelphia Four': William Glackens
, George Luks
, Everett Shinn
, and John French Sloan
. The gatherings became known as the "Charcoal Club", featuring life drawing and readings in the social philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson
, Walt Whitman
, Émile Zola
, and Henry David Thoreau
. By 1895, Henri had come to reconsider Impressionism, calling it a "new academicism".
For several years, he divided his time between Philadelphia and Paris, where he met the Canadian artist James Wilson Morrice
. Morrice introduced Henri to the practice of painting pochade
s on tiny wood panels that could be carried in a coat pocket along with a minimal kit of brushes and oil. This facilitated the kind of spontaneous depictions of urban scenes which would come to be associated with his mature style.
In 1898 he married Linda Craige, a student from his private art class. The couple spent the next two years on an extended honeymoon in France, during which time the French government purchased his painting, La Neige ("The Snow"), to be displayed in the Musée du Luxembourg
.
He began teaching at the New York School of Art in 1902, where his students included Joseph Stella
, Edward Hopper
, Rockwell Kent
, George Bellows
, Norman Raeben
, Louis D. Fancher
, and Stuart Davis
. In 1905, Henri's wife Linda, long in poor health, died.
In 1906, he was elected to the National Academy of Design
, but when painters in his circle were rejected for the Academy's 1907 exhibition, he accused fellow jurors of bias and walked off the jury, resolving to organize a show of his own. He would later refer to the Academy as "a cemetery of art".
In February 1908, Henri organized a landmark show entitled "The Eight
" (after the eight painters displaying their works) at the Macbeth Gallery in New York. Besides his own works and those produced by the "Philadelphia Four" (who had followed Henri to New York by this time), there were paintings by Maurice Prendergast
, Ernest Lawson
, and Arthur B. Davies
. These painters and this exhibition would become associated with the Ashcan School
, although the content of the show was diverse and that term was not coined until 1934. Henri was at the heart of the group who led the depiction of the tough, exuberant city. Having spurned academic painting and Impressionism
as an art of mere surfaces, Henri wanted art to be akin to journalism, and, 'for paint to be as real as mud, as the clods of horseshit and snow that froze on Broadway
in the winter.' Looking at Henri's Salome
of 1909 the critic Robert Hughes
observed: "Her long legs thrust out with strutting sexual arrogance, and glint through the over-brushed back veil. It has far more oomph than hundreds of virginal, genteel muses, painted by American academics. He has given it urgency with slashing brush marks and strong tonal contrasts. He's learned from Winslow Homer
, from Édouard Manet
, and from the vulgarity of Frans Hals
."
In May 1908, he married 22-year old Irish-born Marjorie Organ.
In 1910, Henri organized the Exhibition of Independent Artists, the first nonjuried, no-prize show in the U.S., which he modeled after the Salon des Independants in France. Works were hung alphabetically to emphasize the egalitarian philosophy. Walt Kuhn
, who took part in this show, would come to play a key role in the Armory Show
, an exhibition mounted in 1913 that introduced many American viewers to avant-garde European art. Five of Henri's paintings were included in the Armory Show.
Henri admired anarchist and Mother Earth
publisher Emma Goldman
, and taught from 1911 at the Modern School
. Goldman, who later sat for a portrait by Henri, described him as "an anarchist in his conception of art and its relation to life".
He made several trips to Ireland's western coast and rented Corrymore House near Dooagh
in 1913. Every spring and summer for the following years he would paint the children of Dooagh. In 1924 he purchased Corrymore House.
From 1915 to 1927 he was a popular and influential teacher at the Art Students League of New York
. His ideas on art were collected by former pupil Margery Ryerson and published as The Art Spirit (Philadelphia, 1923). Henri's other students include George Bellows
, Arnold Franz Brasz
, Stuart Davis
, Edward Hopper
, Rockwell Kent
, Lillian Cotton
, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi
.
In the spring of 1929 Henri was chosen as one of the top three living American artists by the Arts Council of New York. Henri died of cancer in the summer of 1929. He was honored with a memorial exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
in 1931.
Ashcan School
The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods. The movement grew out of a group...
in art.
Early life
Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio. Cincinnati is the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located to north of the Ohio River at the Ohio-Kentucky border, near Indiana. The population within city limits is 296,943 according to the 2010 census, making it Ohio's...
to Theresa Gatewood Cozad of Malden, Virginia
Malden, West Virginia
Malden is an unincorporated community in Kanawha County, West Virginia, United States, within the Charleston metro area. The ZIP code for Malden is 25306 and the area code is 304. Malden is set in the Eastern Standard Time Zone.-History:...
and John Jackson Cozad, a gambler and real estate developer. Henri had a brother, Johnny, and was a distant cousin of the noted American painter Mary Cassatt
Mary Cassatt
Mary Stevenson Cassatt was an American painter and printmaker. She lived much of her adult life in France, where she first befriended Edgar Degas and later exhibited among the Impressionists...
. In 1871, Henri's father founded the town of Cozaddale, Ohio
Cozaddale, Ohio
Cozaddale is an unincorporated community in southeastern Hamilton Township, Warren County, Ohio, United States. It is about one mile south of Camargo, one mile southeast of Hickory Corner, and two miles west of Pleasant Plain, and three miles north of Goshen, Ohio. It was laid out by John J...
. In 1873, the family moved west to Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
, where they founded the town of Cozad
Cozad, Nebraska
Cozad is a city in Dawson County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 3,977 at the 2010 census. The town is on the Great Plains of central Nebraska, along the Union Pacific Railroad and U.S. Highway 30, just north of the Platte River...
.
In October 1882, Henri's father became embroiled in a dispute with a rancher, Alfred Pearson, over the right to pasture cattle on land claimed by the family. When the dispute turned physical, Cozad shot Pearson fatally with a pistol. Cozad was eventually cleared of wrongdoing, but the mood of the town turned against him. He fled to Denver, Colorado
Denver, Colorado
The City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
, and the rest of the family followed shortly afterwards. In order to disassociate themselves from the scandal, family members changed their names. The father became known as Richard Henry Lee, and his sons posed as adopted children under the names Frank Southern and Robert Earl Henri .
In 1883, the family moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, then to Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City, New Jersey
Atlantic City is a city in Atlantic County, New Jersey, United States, and a nationally renowned resort city for gambling, shopping and fine dining. The city also served as the inspiration for the American version of the board game Monopoly. Atlantic City is located on Absecon Island on the coast...
, where the young artist completed his first paintings.
Education
In 1886, Henri enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsPennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the oldest art museum and school in the United States. The academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th and 20th century American paintings,...
in Philadelphia, where he studied under Thomas Anshutz
Thomas Pollock Anshutz
Thomas Pollock Anshutz was an American painter and teacher. Co-founder of The Darby School and leader at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Anshutz was known for his award winning portraiture work and working friendship with Thomas Eakins.-Personal life and education:Thomas Anshutz was born in...
, a protege of Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
. In 1888, he traveled to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
to study at the Académie Julian
Académie Julian
The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...
, where he studied under William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau
William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. William Bouguereau was a traditionalist; in his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of Classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.-Life and career :William-Adolphe...
and embraced Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
. With time, he was admitted into the École des Beaux Arts. He visited Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
during this period.
By the end of 1891, he returned to Philadelphia, studying under Robert Vonnoh
Robert Vonnoh
Robert William Vonnoh was an American Impressionist painter known for his portraits and landscapes. He traveled extensively between the East Coast and France, more specifically the artists colony Grez-sur-Loing....
at the Academy. In 1892, he began teaching at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women
Philadelphia School of Design for Women
Philadelphia School of Design for Women is a historic building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.-References:...
.
Work
Philadelphia Press
The Philadelphia Press is a defunct newspaper that was published from August 1, 1857 to October 1, 1920.The paper was founded by John W. Forney. Charles Emory Smith was editor and owned a stake in the paper from 1880 until his death in 1908...
newspaper who would become known as the 'Philadelphia Four': William Glackens
William Glackens
William James Glackens was an American realist painter.Glackens studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and later moved to New York City, where he co-founded what came to be called the Ashcan School art movement...
, George Luks
George Luks
George Benjamin Luks, was an American realist artist and illustrator. His vigorously painted genre paintings of urban subjects are examples of the Ashcan school in American art.-Early life:...
, Everett Shinn
Everett Shinn
Everett Shinn was an American realist painter and member of the Ashcan School, also known as 'the Eight.' He was the youngest member of the group of modernist painters who explored the depiction of real life...
, and John French Sloan
John French Sloan
John French Sloan was an American artist. As a member of The Eight, he became a leading figure in the Ashcan School of realist artists. He was known for his urban genre painting and ability to capture the essence of neighborhood life in New York City, often through his window...
. The gatherings became known as the "Charcoal Club", featuring life drawing and readings in the social philosophy of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, and poet, who led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century...
, Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse...
, Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
, and Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
. By 1895, Henri had come to reconsider Impressionism, calling it a "new academicism".
For several years, he divided his time between Philadelphia and Paris, where he met the Canadian artist James Wilson Morrice
James Wilson Morrice
James Wilson Morrice was a significant Canadian landscape painter. He studied at the Académie Julian in Paris, France, where he lived for most of his career.-Biography:...
. Morrice introduced Henri to the practice of painting pochade
Pochade
A pochade is a type of sketch used in painting. As opposed to a croquis, which is line art, a pochade captures the colors and atmosphere of a scene....
s on tiny wood panels that could be carried in a coat pocket along with a minimal kit of brushes and oil. This facilitated the kind of spontaneous depictions of urban scenes which would come to be associated with his mature style.
In 1898 he married Linda Craige, a student from his private art class. The couple spent the next two years on an extended honeymoon in France, during which time the French government purchased his painting, La Neige ("The Snow"), to be displayed in the Musée du Luxembourg
Musée du Luxembourg
Musée du Luxembourg is a museum in Paris, France. It occupies the east wing of the Palais du Luxembourg, whose matching west wing originally housed Ruben's Marie de' Medici cycle. Since 2000 it has been run by the French Ministry of Culture and the Senate and is devoted to temporary exhibitions...
.
He began teaching at the New York School of Art in 1902, where his students included Joseph Stella
Joseph Stella
Joseph Stella was an Italian-born, American Futurist painter best known for his depictions of industrial America. He is associated with the American Precisionism movement of the 1910s-1940s....
, Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
, Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer.- Biography :Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York, the same year as fellow American artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper...
, George Bellows
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...
, Norman Raeben
Norman Raeben
Norman Raeben was an American painter.He was born in Eastern Ukraine , the youngest of the six children of Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem, whose most famous character Tevye the Milkman gave the blueprint for the musical Fiddler on the Roof...
, Louis D. Fancher
Louis D. Fancher
Louis D. Fancher was an American artist and illustrator, notable for his drawings that appeared in books, in magazines, and on propaganda posters during World War I.-Life:...
, and Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis (painter)
Stuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
. In 1905, Henri's wife Linda, long in poor health, died.
In 1906, he was elected to the National Academy of Design
National Academy of Design
The National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, founded in New York City as the National Academy of Design – known simply as the "National Academy" – is an honorary association of American artists founded in 1825 by Samuel F. B. Morse, Asher B. Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E...
, but when painters in his circle were rejected for the Academy's 1907 exhibition, he accused fellow jurors of bias and walked off the jury, resolving to organize a show of his own. He would later refer to the Academy as "a cemetery of art".
In February 1908, Henri organized a landmark show entitled "The Eight
The Eight
The Eight may refer to:*Ashcan School, an American school of painters*The Eight , a Hungarian art movement*The Eight ...
" (after the eight painters displaying their works) at the Macbeth Gallery in New York. Besides his own works and those produced by the "Philadelphia Four" (who had followed Henri to New York by this time), there were paintings by Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Prendergast
Maurice Brazil Prendergast was an American Post-Impressionist artist who worked in oil, watercolor, and monotype...
, Ernest Lawson
Ernest Lawson
Ernest Lawson was a Canadian-American painter and a member of The Eight, a group of artists which included the group's leaders Robert Henri, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Arthur B. Davies, Maurice Prendergast, George Luks, and William J. Glackens...
, and Arthur B. Davies
Arthur B. Davies
Arthur Bowen Davies was an avant-garde American artist and patron.-Biography:He was born in Utica, New York and studied at the Chicago Academy of Design from 1879 to 1882...
. These painters and this exhibition would become associated with the Ashcan School
Ashcan School
The Ashcan School, also called the Ash Can School, is defined as a realist artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the early twentieth century, best known for works portraying scenes of daily life in New York's poorer neighborhoods. The movement grew out of a group...
, although the content of the show was diverse and that term was not coined until 1934. Henri was at the heart of the group who led the depiction of the tough, exuberant city. Having spurned academic painting and Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
as an art of mere surfaces, Henri wanted art to be akin to journalism, and, 'for paint to be as real as mud, as the clods of horseshit and snow that froze on Broadway
Broadway (New York City)
Broadway is a prominent avenue in New York City, United States, which runs through the full length of the borough of Manhattan and continues northward through the Bronx borough before terminating in Westchester County, New York. It is the oldest north–south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to...
in the winter.' Looking at Henri's Salome
Salome
Salome , the Daughter of Herodias , is known from the New Testament...
of 1909 the critic Robert Hughes
Robert Hughes (critic)
Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...
observed: "Her long legs thrust out with strutting sexual arrogance, and glint through the over-brushed back veil. It has far more oomph than hundreds of virginal, genteel muses, painted by American academics. He has given it urgency with slashing brush marks and strong tonal contrasts. He's learned from Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer was an American landscape painter and printmaker, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th century America and a preeminent figure in American art....
, from Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, and from the vulgarity of Frans Hals
Frans Hals
Frans Hals was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He is notable for his loose painterly brushwork, and helped introduce this lively style of painting into Dutch art. Hals was also instrumental in the evolution of 17th century group portraiture.-Biography:Hals was born in 1580 or 1581, in Antwerp...
."
In May 1908, he married 22-year old Irish-born Marjorie Organ.
In 1910, Henri organized the Exhibition of Independent Artists, the first nonjuried, no-prize show in the U.S., which he modeled after the Salon des Independants in France. Works were hung alphabetically to emphasize the egalitarian philosophy. Walt Kuhn
Walt Kuhn
Walt Kuhn was an American painter and was an organizer of the modern art Armory Show of 1913, which was the first of its genre in America.-Biography:Kuhn was born in Brooklyn, New York City...
, who took part in this show, would come to play a key role in the Armory Show
Armory Show
Many exhibitions have been held in the vast spaces of U.S. National Guard armories, but the Armory Show refers to the 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art that was organized by the Association of American Painters and Sculptors...
, an exhibition mounted in 1913 that introduced many American viewers to avant-garde European art. Five of Henri's paintings were included in the Armory Show.
Henri admired anarchist and Mother Earth
Mother Earth (magazine)
Mother Earth was an anarchist journal that described itself as "A Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature," edited by Emma Goldman. Alexander Berkman, another well-known anarchist, was the magazine's editor from 1907 to 1915...
publisher Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman
Emma Goldman was an anarchist known for her political activism, writing and speeches. She played a pivotal role in the development of anarchist political philosophy in North America and Europe in the first half of the twentieth century....
, and taught from 1911 at the Modern School
Modern School (United States)
The Modern Schools, also called Ferrer Schools, were United States schools, established in the early twentieth century, that were modeled after the Escuela Moderna of Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, the Catalan educator and anarchist...
. Goldman, who later sat for a portrait by Henri, described him as "an anarchist in his conception of art and its relation to life".
He made several trips to Ireland's western coast and rented Corrymore House near Dooagh
Dooagh
Dooagh is a village located on Achill Island in County Mayo, Ireland. It is best known for the nearby Keem Bay, a Blue Flag beach.-Facilities:...
in 1913. Every spring and summer for the following years he would paint the children of Dooagh. In 1924 he purchased Corrymore House.
From 1915 to 1927 he was a popular and influential teacher at the Art Students League of New York
Art Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
. His ideas on art were collected by former pupil Margery Ryerson and published as The Art Spirit (Philadelphia, 1923). Henri's other students include George Bellows
George Bellows
George Wesley Bellows was an American realist painter, known for his bold depictions of urban life in New York City, becoming, according to the Columbus Museum of Art, "the most acclaimed American artist of his generation".-Youth:Bellows was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio...
, Arnold Franz Brasz
Arnold Franz Brasz
Arnold Franz Brasz was an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker who was born in Polk County, Wisconsin on July 19, 1888. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Fine Arts and also with Robert Henri in New York. By the early 1920s, he was dividing his time between southern California and...
, Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis (painter)
Stuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
, Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper
Edward Hopper was a prominent American realist painter and printmaker. While most popularly known for his oil paintings, he was equally proficient as a watercolorist and printmaker in etching...
, Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent
Rockwell Kent was an American painter, printmaker, illustrator, and writer.- Biography :Rockwell Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York, the same year as fellow American artists George Bellows and Edward Hopper...
, Lillian Cotton
Lillian Cotton
Lillian Cotton was an American artist who lived between Paris and New York City.Lillian Cotton studied at the André Lhote Academy in Paris and later at the Art Students League in New York with Robert Henri....
, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi
Yasuo Kuniyoshi
was an American painter, photographer and printmaker born in Okayama, Japan.He migrated to America in 1906, a year later began studying at the Los Angeles School of Art and Design. In 1935 he was awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship. He taught at the Art Students League of New York in New York City...
.
In the spring of 1929 Henri was chosen as one of the top three living American artists by the Arts Council of New York. Henri died of cancer in the summer of 1929. He was honored with a memorial exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
in 1931.
Quotations
- "It is harder to see than it is to express. The whole value of art rests in the artist's ability to see well into what is before him."
- "Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable, and we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life's experience."
- "Paint what you feel. Paint what you see. Paint what is real to you."
- "Different men are moved or left cold by lines according to the difference in their natures. What moves you is beautiful to you."
- "There is only one reason for art in America, and that is that the people of America learn the means of expressing themselves in their own time, and their own land."
- Robert Henri's open letter to the Art Students LeagueArt Students League of New YorkThe Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
about Thomas EakinsThomas EakinsThomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
, (29 October 1917):
External links
- The Laundress (1916) Phoenix Art MuseumPhoenix art museumThe Phoenix Art Museum is the Southwest United States' largest art museum for visual art. Located in Phoenix, Arizona, the museum is . It displays international exhibitions alongside its comprehensive collection of more than 18,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, Western...
- Works by Robert Henri at the Athenaeum
- Robert Henri works at Detroit Institute of Arts
- The Laughing Boy at the Birmingham Museum of ArtBirmingham Museum of ArtFounded in 1951, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama today has one of the finest collections in the Southeast US, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing a numerous diverse cultures, including Asian, European, American,...
- Four Female Bathers at the Birmingham Museum of ArtBirmingham Museum of ArtFounded in 1951, the Birmingham Museum of Art in Birmingham, Alabama today has one of the finest collections in the Southeast US, with more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing a numerous diverse cultures, including Asian, European, American,...