Robert Henri

Henri, Robert 

Born June 25, 1865, in Cincinnati; died July 12, 1929, in New York. American painter and graphic artist.

Henri studied in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1885–88) and in Paris at the Julian Academy and the Ecole des Beaux Arts (1888–90). He worked in Philadelphia (1891–95), various European cities (1895–99), and New York. He was the leader of the group known as the Eight, or the ashcan school, and the founder of 20th-century American realism. He was the teacher of the ashcan school’s principal representatives. Henri contributed to American socialist magazines. His portraits, for example, Laughing Child (1907, Whitney Museum, New York) and The Masquerade Dress: Portrait of Mrs. Robert Henri (1911, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), are noted for their restrained expressiveness, warm attitude toward people, and democratic spirit.

REFERENCE

Homer, W. J., and V. Organ. Robert Henri and His Circle. Ithaca, N.Y., 1969.