Month: September 2016

Amanda Zhang                                                                                       September 16, 2016

IDC 1001H                                                                                             Professor Hoffman

Robert Henri

Robert Henri, an American painter and teacher, is well known for being one of the main figures of the Ashcan School.  He was born as Robert Henry Cozad on June 25, 1865 in Cincinnati, Ohio.  Interestingly, Robert Henri was a distant cousin of Mary Cassatt, an American Impressionist.  A dispute with a local rancher over the right to pasture cattle on the land owned by the family turned gruesome when Cozad’s father shot the rancher (Sullivan Goss 1).  To escape the negative reputation gained by this terrible scandal, the entire family fled and changed their names.  Hence, Robert Henry Cozad became known as Robert Earle Henri.  Robert Henri was sent to a boarding school in New York while his parents went to Atlantic City in New Jersey where they all later reunited as a family.  In 1884, Henri attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts for four years where we studied under Thomas Anshutz and was introduced to Thomas Eakins, an American realist painter.  He also went Paris and attended Academie Julian and the Ecole des Beauz-Arts (Britannica 2).  It was in Paris where Henri adopted a liking for the Impressionist style of painting.  The Impressionist style is focused more on capturing the sensory and momentary effect of a scene rather than relying on accurate depictions (Justin Wolf).  When he came back to the United States, he became a teacher at the School of Design for Women in Philadelphia.  This is also the time when he gained a few dedicated followers and they soon became known as “The Charcoal Club” and its members became known as “The Philadelphia Four.”  Robert Henri briefly went back to Paris where he had his work exhibited and then he came back to New York City where he taught at the New York School of Art.  By then, Robert Henri had rejected his admiration for Impressionism and began leaning towards a more realistic style of art.  The pivotal point in his life that led to the many subsequent developments for which he is well known for came when he was elected to the National Academy of Design.  Henri was infuriated, however, when the realist works of his fellow colleagues were rejected from being displayed at an exhibition (Sullivan Goss 6).  Robert Henri rallied the Philadelphia Four plus three other artists to display their work at group exhibition at the Macbeth Gallery in New York City.  The eight painters later assimilated into what became known as the Ashcan School, which was an artistic movement that was known for its urban subject matter, especially the poorer urban areas, and its depiction of the “real” (Ashcan School Movement). Later on in his life, Robert Henri taught at the Arts Student League in New York.  In 1929, he unfortunately passed away in New York City.

Robert Henri’s works were produced in and around the Progressive Era, which was a time of reform movements in response to industrialization and urbanization (The Progressive Era).  This time period influenced what Henri painted and how he wanted to depict his subjects in his numerous portraits.  Urbanization especially played a large role in a lot of his paintings in that he Robert Henri’s Ashcan School flourished mainly around the same time that muckraking journalists were highlighting the dismal conditions of the slums, especially in New York City. Most of Henri’s paintings are portraits of people and in particular, he narrowed a few of his paintings to immigrants living in Lower Manhattan (Ashcan School Movement).  Immigration is a prevalent seminar theme and understandably so.  It’s interesting that Henri as well as the other artists in the Ashcan School chose New York immigrants as the subjects of their paintings.  However, unlike photographers like Jacob Riis who had a motive for reform behind their works, Robert Henri and most of the Ashcan School artists painted just to depict the rawness and realness of the subjects.  “They [Ashcan School] were neither social critics nor reformers” (Weinberg).  This ties in with another seminar theme of what exactly art is and what is its purpose.  For Robert Henri, the purpose behind his art is mainly to depict the reality of life, especially urban life and to bring that vitality out through his paintings.  He didn’t have a goal of wanting to reform the poor social and economic conditions of the immigrants living in the slums.  He wanted to paint the way he did because he admired the style of realism and rejected impressionism.  His works clearly show his propensity for realistic depictions of his surroundings and of people.  One great example of this is his painting “Snow in New York.”  This demonstrates the spontaneity of this painting and how real and rough it is.  It’s an accurate depiction of the realism that Robert Henri consistently embodies in his works.  Another example would be a portrait named “Willie Gee” and it’s a portrait of a little African American boy from New York.  This is an uncommon subject as child portraits traditionally tend to be children of rich people wanting to display their wealth and memorialize their children.  But Henri decided to draw this little boy just because he thought he’d be an interesting subject to paint.  Additionally, one would think that because of the reformative era in which Robert Henri created his works and the fact that he used immigrants as subjects of some of his portraits that he would be commenting and criticizing the economic conditions of those who are less fortunate.  But Robert Henri seems to be more focused and intent on the artistic and realistic aspects of what an immigrant subject can bring to his works.

Bibliography/Works Cited

“Ashcan School Movement, Artists and Major Works.” The Art Story. The  Art Story Foundation, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

“Robert Henri.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

“Robert Henri.” Sullivan Goss: An American Gallery. Sullivan Goss, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

“The Progressive Era (1890 – 1920).” The Progressive Era (1890 – 1920). George Washington    University, n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

Weinberg, Author: H. Barbara. “The Ashcan School | Essay.” The Met’s Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.

Wolf, Justin. “Impressionism Movement, Artists and Major Works.” The Art Story. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Sept. 2016.