Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney by Robert Henri, 1916. Whitney Museum of American Art. [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons I first became interested in Robert Henri (1865-1929) at my first trip to the American Art Fair, an annual New York City show of American paintings for sale by a few top American art dealers. I can’t remember exactly which Henri painting caught my eye, whatever it was certainly left an impression. Based on his name, one would assume that Henri was French, but he was neither French nor even Robert Henri. He was Robert Henry Cozad when he was born in Ohio in 1865, and he changed his name for completely non-artistic reasons – to disguise his identity after his father ran into some trouble involving a neighbor’s death (1). It seems like Henri had a pretty wild early life.
With his new identity, Henri moved to the eastern United States and studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He…
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