Henri - john-butler-yeats-1909 - Public domain portrait painting

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, and James B. Kelly. Although Henri was an important portraitist and figure painter who was admired for his straightforward, vital likenesses of unusual sitters, he is best remembered today as the influential, progressive, and charismatic founder of the so-called Ashcan school of urban realism. A champion of “art for life’s sake,” he was noted for his democratic approach to portraiture, and chose sitters from diverse racial groups and walks of life. In 1909 he was strongly influenced by the color theories of Hardesty Maratta, and his palette brightened considerably. Henri was a tremendously influential teacher, and his ideas on art were collected by former pupil Margery Ryerson and published as The Art Spirit (Philadelphia, 1923).