Henry C. Balink

John Miller, Palm Springs (acquired by 1982)

Private Collection, California

Coeur d’Alene Art Auction, Reno, 27 July 2013, lot 181

Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

Palm Springs Desert Museum, The West as Art: Changing Perceptions of Western Art in California Collections, 1982, pl. 54, illustrated

Among the foremost painters of Native American portraits of the Southwest in the twentieth century, Henry Balink followed in the footsteps of the Taos Society of Artists established in 1915. Born in the Netherlands, he trained at the Royal Academie Amsterdam before immigrating to New York City during World War I. He got his start working for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, then moved to Chicago to work privately as a portraitist and muralist. Balink became enchanted by the imagery of the Southwest from a poster of Taos, New Mexico, leading to his move to Santa Fe in the 1920s where he focused exclusively on Native American people and culture in his artwork.