Robert Henri Biography | Oil Paintings

6-24-1865 Cincinnati, Ohio USA – 7-12-1929 New York, NY USA

Henri, Robert

Robert Henri was born Robert Henry Cozad, his father had founded a small Midwest town called Cozad. Robert Henri enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia in 1886 at the age of twenty-one, and two years later went to Paris where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. His formal training was rounded off by extensive travels in Italy and Spain.

On Robert Henri returned to the USA in 1891 he became a teacher at the Women's School of Design in Philadelphia. It was in Philadelphia, where he met four young newspaper illustrators, John Sloan, William Glackens, Everett Shinn, and George Luks, who would later form part the group of “The Eight” to whom he introduced the work of Frans Hals, Edouard Manet, and Diego Vealázquez.

He worked in Paris again from 1896 to 1901 but later settled in New York where he taught at the Art Students League. He was a fervent believer in realism, which led critics to deride his "Ashcan School”, but he wielded enormous influence on the next generation of American artists. Despite his teaching commitments, he was a prolific artist.

In 1906, Robert Henri 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, vowing to organize his own show. In 1908 he founded his own art school in New York and formed the group known as 'The Eight”, a loose association of artists who protested the restrictive exhibition practices of the powerful, conservative National Academy of Design. Over the years his students included Edward Hopper, George Bellows, Morgan Russell, and Stuart Davis. Henri was a distant cousin of the Impressionist painter Mary Cassatt.

The highest auction price for a Robert Henri oil painting in 2005, when Jessica Penn In Black With White Plumes sold for US$3.6 million.

Art Movement History: Ashcan School, Realism.
Artists Influencing Henri: Thomas Anshutz, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Edouard Manet, Frans Hals, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Diego Vealázquez.
Painters Robert Henri Influenced: Joseph Stella, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, George Bellows, Norman Raeben, Louis D. Fancher, Stuart Davis, Lillian Cotton, Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
He Traveled To France, Ireland, Italy, Spain.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist.

Robert Henri Hand-Painted Oil Painting Reproductions.

Robert Henri Museum Art Replicas on Canvas.

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