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ROBERT HENRI
American, 18651929
Portrait of Carl Sprinchorn, 1910
Oil on canvas. 24 x 20 in. (61 x 51 cm)
Gift of Anna Sprinchorn Johnson. 76.43
Born in Cincinnati, Robert Henri studied at the Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts in the tradition of Thomas Eakins. He subsequently studied
in Paris with Bouguereau, but his academic training eventually gave way
to Impressionism. This too he abandoned for the darker tones and more painterly
approach of artists like Velasquez, Manet, and especially Frans Hals. In
1907, he organized an exhibition in response to what he felt was the National
Academy's inadequate representation of the art scene, becoming the outspoken
leader of "The Eight" (so named from the eight artists in that
exhibition: Arthur B. Davies, Ernest Lawson, Maurice Prendergast, George
Luks, William Glackens, John Sloan, Everett Shinn, and himself), later sometimes
called the "Ashcan School." His active and dynamic style of painting
influenced the many students he taught at the New York School of Art (19031909)
and at his own Henri School of Art (19091912), including George Bellows,
Stuart Davis, Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, Paul Manship, and Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
Carl Sprinchorn, a portrait of a fellow artist, presents the viewer
with the same concerns Henri taught his students: to focus on technique
alone (as the Academy taught) was to "drain the life out of any ideas
to which it is applied"; artists should "avoid dwelling on details"
in order to capture the life, spirit, and essence of the subject depicted. |
