- 48
Robert Henri 1865 - 1929
Description
- Robert Henri
- Irish Lad
- signed Robert Henri, l.l.
- oil on canvas
- 32 by 26 in.
- (81.3 by 66.0 cm)
- Painted on Achill Island, Corrymore, Ireland, in 1913.
Provenance
Berry-Hill Galleries, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 1989
Exhibited
San Diego, California, San Diego Exposition, 1915
New York, Macbeth Gallery, 1925
Waterbury, Connecticut, Mattatuck Museum, Paintings Lent by Members, November 1947, no. 10
Literature
Catalogue Note
As Valerie Leeds writes: "A strong biographical undercurrent as well as his democratic view of humanity is reflected in Henri's portraiture. He record the world in which he lived by painting the individuals he found there, whether intimates, acquaintances, or the exotic "types" he found in his travels. The psychological empathy he developed for each individual seduced him, and as a result he endowed each portrait with a spark of life and a sense of the subject's uniqueness:
'I find as I go out, from one land to another seeking "my people," that I have none of that cruel, fearful possession known as patriotism...My love of mankind is individual, not national, and always I find the race expressed in the individual. And so I am "patriotic" only about what I admire, and my devotion to humanity burns up as brightly for [and]....just as completely as though each of these people were of my own country....Everywhere I see at times this beautiful expression of the dignity of life to which I respond with a wish to preserve this beauty of humanity" ("The Portraits of Robert Henri", My People: The Portraits of Robert Henri, Orlando Museum of Art, 1994, p. 42).