Hendrik Glintenkamp

"Clowns: Aren't We All?" Henry Glintenkamp, WPA Era Circus Figures, Modern

1942

The painter and illustrator Henry Glintenkamp (1887-1946) is known mainly for his anti-war illustrations that appeared in The Masses and other publications in the early twentieth century. As a painter, he was additionally successful, particularly in his landscape and urban scenes. Born in Augusta, New Jersey, the son of Hendrik and Sophie Dietz Glintenkamp, Henry received his elementary art training at the National Academy of Design (1903-06) before his study with Robert Henri the two years following. Henri consequently attracted artists like Glintenkamp interested in returning to a sense of human qualities. Setting up his studio in the Lincoln Arcade Building with Stuart Davis and Glenn O. Coleman, Glintenkamp did work that reflects a preoccupation with urban scenes and landscapes. In May of 1910 Glintenkamp exhibited his works as a student at the Henri School and at the Exhibition of Independent Artists of 1910. Two years later, he accepted the position of instructor at the Hoboken Arts Club in New Jersey and in 1913, he took up with others in the organization of The Masses, designed as a publication devoted to humanitarian causes. This publication stood in stark opposition to war, as its articles and cartoons reflected pacifism. At the Armory Show (1913), Glintenkamp exhibited The Village Cemetery. In 1917, Glintenkamp moved to Mexico to avoid the draft, and remained there until 1924, supporting "the socialist agenda of Mexico's new leadership." The period following 1917 marks a new phase in the artist's development. Brighter in color and compositionally more involved, his later works are more discordant than the artist's earlier work. The artist sacrificed the atmospheric quality of the limited palette for the increased influence of modernist movements. After extensive travels in Europe, Glintenkamp returned to New York in 1934, and became a teacher at the New York School of Fine and Industrial Art and the John Reed Club School of Art. As chairman for the committee responsible for the organization of an Exhibition in Defense of World Democracy, in 1937, Glintenkamp continued his humanitarian purpose, though never really took up with the socialist rebels, many of whom followed similar groups and publications. Indeed, Glintenkamp was instrumental in founding the American Artists' Congress; he continued serving its needs as both the organization's president and secretary. A peripheral member of the impressionist-tonalist group in his early career, Glintenkamp had progressed through many American movements by the time of his death in 1946.