Portraits by Henri.(Current and coming)

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 ...