Oil painting -> List of Painters -> Robert Henri

Robert Henri

Early Days: Robert Henri was born Robert Henry Cozad in Cincinnati, Ohio to Theresa Gate wood 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 Cozad dale, Ohio. In 1873, the family moved west to Nebraska, where they founded the town of Cozad.

Career:

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, Emile 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 pochades 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 Craig, 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 Musee du Luxembourg.