Robert Henri
Birth Date: June 24, 1865
Death Date: July 12, 1929
Artist Gallery
Robert Henri (pronounced Hen-rye) came from a family that fostered in him a spirit of enterprise and the capacity for self-reliance. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 24, 1865. His father, John Jackson Cozad, was a colorful and flamboyant figure, a sometime professional gambler who regularly invested his winnings inland speculations in the West. As a young man, Henri experienced frontier life working on the family ranch. After graduation in Cincinnati, in 1879, he joined his father’s business. In 1882 John Cozad, in self-defense, shot and mortally wounded an armed adversary. Fearing reprisal from the community he fled with his family to Denver and then eventually to Atlantic City, New Jersey where the family decided to begin new lives under a varied of assumed names. Robert merely dropped his last name and changed the middle name from Henry to Henri, an identity he kept even after his father’s exoneration. These extremely colorful beginnings probably contributed to the shaping of Henri’s forceful personality and the activist tendencies he displayed as an adult. After the move to the east, Henri became serious about art and enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1886 under the direction of Thomas Eakins. In 1888, feeling an attraction to Europe, he enrolled in the Academic Julian and ended up living and studying art in France for 3 years. Once back in America, Henri began to paint in the school of Social Realism (the Ashcan School), also known as The Group of Eight. In 1909, Henri opened the American School of Art, where his superb but unorthodox teaching shocked those who were dismayed by paintings of everyday life. Among his many students were George Bellows, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent and Stuart Davis. "Do not imitate – be yourself," was Henri’s advice. In his well-known book, The Art of Spirit, he cautioned against superficiality in painting; however, some critics feel much of his own work belied that advice, while others insist he captured the essence and depth necessary for quality in portraiture and landscapes. His subjects were varied; his purpose was to picture all classes no matter what ethnic or racial background.