Robert Henri Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
American, 1865-1929
Born Robert Henry Cozad, Robert shared a lineage with Mary Cassatt, making them cousins. Henri kept secret that relationship much as he did his birth name, in an effort to erase the reputation of a murder conviction against his father John Cozad. Robert's childhood reads like a Bret Harte short story. From card shark to real estate speculator, Henri's father moved the family from Cincinnati to Nebraska in a series of speculative land development projects. A disgruntled employee attacked Robert's father, and in self-defense his gun fired, killing the attacker. The murder conviction, later pardoned, led to the family's fleeing to Colorado, and assuming new identities. Robert Henri was sent to boarding school in New York, where he showed talent in writing and theater, creative endeavors encouraged by his mother. He discounted his creativity, thinking "artists surprised their parents... by doing masterpieces in their infancy... and [he] was not of that class" (Perlman). Nevertheless, painting buildings his father acquired in Atlantic City and producing political cartoons and color sketches for a small "museum" in his father's store caught the attention of admirers who encouraged Robert's art. James Albert Cathcart persuaded Henri to study at his alma mater, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where Henri enrolled in 1886.
Robert Henri’s strong connection to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts began when he enrolled as a student in 1886. He entered the Academy eight months after Thomas Eakins had resigned. Despite Eakins’s absence, his strong influence on the curriculum at PAFA remained and it affected Henri profoundly. Eakins had instituted new educational policies at the Academy that were some of the most progressive in the country.
Thomas Anshutz played an important role in Henri’s development as an artist. He upheld many of Eakins’s ideas and continued to build upon his teaching method; however, Anshutz was also open to change and cultivated individual artistic expression. A devoted teacher, he did not impose artistic formulas. Henri valued Anshutz’s criticism greatly, and determined to succeed as an artist, he worked tirelessly as his student.
After studying for three years in Paris from 1888 to 1891, Henri returned to Philadelphia and the halls of the Academy. Steeped in Anshutz’s call for realism and plain painting without bravura, Henri challenged himself and the other artists he influenced to “paint what you feel . . . paint what is real to you.” And so began his lifelong pursuit of painting “life in the raw,” without what he deemed “academic artifice.” He promoted this credo to his many students and perhaps popularized it most in his sensational 1908 exhibition at Macbeth Gallery, where he and a group of artists, eventually called The Eight, mounted a show that was a direct affront to the National Academy of Design’s rejection of their work and the modernist spirit that shaped them as artists. Henri met four of the artists who made up The Eight, William Glackens, John Sloan, Everett Shinn, and George Luks, in Philadelphia, where they all took classes at PAFA.to
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Artist: Robert Henri
Portrait of a resting young lady (Marjorie Organ)
By Robert Henri
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Portrait of a resting young lady (Marjorie Organ)
Black chalk on paper. c. 1907
signed in ink by Henri's nephew, John C. LeClair, the executor of the Henri estate
"Robert Henri JLC"
Note: The sitter for this portrait is depicted in two drawings of similar size, illustrated in Chapellier Galleries Inc., Robert Henri 1865-1929, 1976, nos. 15 & 16.
Please see the attached photo of Marjorie Organ, Henri's second wife
Condition: Excellent
Image/Sheet size: 10 3/8 x 7 1/2 inches
Provenance: Estate of the Artist
John C. LeClair, Estate Adminitrator
Private Collection, Pawling, New York
Biography
Robert Henri was born Robert Henry Cozad in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 24, 1865, the son of a professional gambler and real estate developer. The family lived in Nebraska and Colorado, but fled east when the father shot and killed a rancher over a land dispute and was indicted for manslaughter. They changed their last name because of the ensuing scandal and eventually settled in Atlantic City, New Jersey, during the early 1880s.
In 1886 Henri enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, where he studied under Thomas Anshutz, Thomas Hovenden...
Category
Early 1900s American Impressionist Robert Henri Figurative Drawings and Watercolors
Materials
Graphite
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Robert Henri figurative drawings and watercolors for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Robert Henri figurative drawings and watercolors available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Robert Henri in crayon and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the early 1900s and is mostly associated with the Impressionist style. Not every interior allows for large Robert Henri figurative drawings and watercolors, so small editions measuring 14 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Martha Walter, Leroy Neiman, and John Singer Sargent. Robert Henri figurative drawings and watercolors prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $16,000 and tops out at $16,000, while the average work can sell for $16,000.