Portraits by Henri

Portraits by the early twentieth-century figurative painter Robert Henri, for the most part, were not commissioned, and in more than a few instances Henri painted his sitters multiple times. In choosing his subjects he looked for a compelling face. He painted quickly and often worked on two canvases at the same time. A prolific writer as well as painter, Henri defended portraiture by writing: "An interest in the subject; something you want to say definitely about the subject, that is the first condition of a portrait." Among his subjects were members of his family; his friends and their families; bullfighters; gypsies; African, Asian, and Hispanic Americans; American Indians; and people he encountered during his travels in Spain. Ireland, and the Netherlands. Spanish bullfighters and dancers appealed to the artist for their exotic and flamboyant appearances, while other sitters were workaday, or even impoverished.

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In 1916, for example, he painted a languid likeness of the heiress and art patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney reclining on a couch, and at the other end of the spectrum, a portrait of an unnamed black woman entitled The Laundress (illustrated on p. 28). Henri began to concentrate on painting portraits in the first decade of the twentieth century and he continued to do so until his death in 1929. Several dozen of these works are on view in an exhibition entitled Robert Henri: The Painted Spirit at the Gerald Peters Gallery in New York City through December 10.

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Children loom large in Henri's portraiture, for the obvious reason that he found their expressions and emotions refreshingly uncomplicated. About them as subjects he wrote, "do not take too seriously the remarks of some of your friends that the children I paint are not pretty. I am not interested in making copies of pretty children. What I am after is the freshness and wonder of their spirit, the beauty that often lies back of an awkward or even homely exterior until it is searched out. I enjoy the search for it."

In the summer of 1921 Henri traveled to Woodstock, New York, where he joined the artists George Bellows, Eugene Speicher, and Leon Kroll. There he painted several members of the Schliecher family, but he found the youngest member of the family, the two-and-a-half-year-old Karl, to be the most interesting and challenging. Nine versions of his likeness exist, two of them in this exhibition.

Painting voluptuous nudes, usually reclining, occupied Henri for a period of time starting after about 1910. The four examples in the exhibition, painted in 1915 and 1916, demonstrate how he repeatedly used this format to very different ends, particularly as a vehicle for experimenting with color and tone.

The catalogue of this exhibition contains an essay by Valerie Ann Leeds, an authority on Henri's work. It may be obtained by telephoning Gerald Peters Gallery at 212-628-9760.

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