Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

ROBERTA BARNES

Halsey, Nebraska

Evening Light

Oil on Canvas

“This is the moment in the day when the light discloses the unexpected. When all is golden, full of beauty and beyond the usual. The magic hour.”

--Robert Henri

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

MARCIA BAUERLE

Imperial, Nebraska

Pink T-Shirt, Claire

Mixed Media

Robert Henri (1865-1929) purchased a house on Achill Island, off the coast of Ireland, in 1925 and painted many portraits of local children. Pink Pinafore from this later period of his life is in the Collection of Nebraska’s Sheldon Museum. I’ve had a print of this painting in my studio for many years, admiring the dark background with simple strokes of color to describe fabric and facial color of his sitter, MaryAnn Cafferty. She became my inspiration, with my determined granddaughter as the subject, sporting a similar serious expression. Hair from magazine photos has been collaged into this image, as well as photos of corn rows from an agriculture publication and dictionary words describing Claire.

“If you paint children, you must have no patronizing attitude toward them. Whoever approaches a child without humility, without wonderment, and without infinite respect, misses in his judgment of what is before him.”

--Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

 

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

WAVA BEST

North Platte, Nebraska

Portrait of a Wedding Gown

Wire Sculpture

As a teacher, Robert Henri encouraged students to explore beyond the material and infuse their work with personal spirit.

I connected with Henri because I was born in Cozad, my maiden name was Henry, and I was impressed by his seven-foot portrait of “Eulabee Dix (Becker) in her Wedding Gown.” My freedom of expression was to create a three-dimensional form of a wedding dress. I used over 800 feet of wire to build “Portrait of a Wedding Gown”.

 

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

JO BROWN

Lincoln, Nebraska

Spirit of Robert Henri

Mixed Media

Robert Henri wrote these words: "Paint what you feel. Paint what you see. Paint what is real to you."

I created this painting to accompany this quotation. For many years I have been fascinated by the energy that is within us and that surrounds us. This painting is an expression of that joyful, exuberant energy.

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

PATRICIA COSLOR

Sargent, Nebraska

The Dignity of a Child

Watercolor

When I saw the obvious bond between father and child, I knew I had to paint it.  The gentle gaze of the father conveys love, wonder, and also respect for the child's dignity. Children have a lot to teach us.

"Feel the dignity of a child.  Do not feel superior to him, for you are not."      --Robert Henri

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

BEN DARLING

Sidney, Nebraska

Summer Sunset Platte Valley

Oil

I recommend Mari Sandoz’s Son of the Gambling Man as a fascinating record of Robert Henri’s early life in Cozad, Nebraska, near the spot this painting depicts. Robert Henri’s educational philosophy formed the basis of my formal artistic education through his influence on my instructors. He spoke honestly about creating art and an artist’s concerns. Henri was a colorist.  He enjoyed and advocated the use of the purest colors possible to achieve his desired results.  While we may parse out the differences between drawing or draftsmanship and painterly or painted approaches, Henri addressed the importance of both in completing a unified image.

“The appreciation of art should not be considered as merely a pleasurable pastime. To apprehend beauty is to work for it.  It is a mighty and an entrancing effort, and the enjoyment of a picture is not only in the pleasure it inspires, but in the comprehension of the new order of construction used in its making.”     --Robert Henri

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

KAREN DIENSTBIER

Lincoln, Nebraska

Gloxinia in Shadow Play

Watercolor

“The great artist has not reproduced nature, but has expressed by his extract the choice sensation it has made upon him. A teacher should be an encourager. An artist must have imagination. An artist who does not use his imagination is a mechanic.”   --Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

DAVID DORSEY

Valentine, Nebraska

Ode to Mary Conomora

Acrylic

I love the many portraits by Robert Henri, their vibrant colors and wonderful compositions. The models in his paintings gaze out from the canvas and transport us to a past era, yet they still resonate with us today. My piece is a tribute to his painting titled “Mary of Conomora”, painted on one of his trips to Ireland. I have Irish immigrants in my family, and this is a thread connecting me to that distant land.

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

DEBRA JOY GROESSER

Ralston, Nebraska

The Reader

Oil on Linen Panel

“The people I like to paint are “my people,” whoever they may be, wherever they may exist, the people through whom dignity of life is manifest, that is, who are in some way expressing themselves naturally along the lines nature intended for them…my interest is awakened and my impulse is to tell about them through my own language, drawing and painting in color.”  --Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

In 2018, I began an Open Studio Portrait Night at my studio with models chosen from among my friends and acquaintances. This piece was done from life during one of those sessions. The model is one of the music leaders from my church. I feel it captures the model’s spirit and quiet dignity.

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

JANNA HARSCH

Greenwood, Nebraska

Ancient Shapes: V

Alkyd on aluminum

“We must paint only what is important to us, must not respond to outside demands.”   --Robert Henri

As soon as I found this line when rereading The Art Spirit, I leapt at it as a chance to portray my chosen form--equines! Much of the rest of the book, however, emphasizes simplifying shapes and gestures to allow the essence of the subject to come through.  Not always my forte! But, a recent museum visit reignited a long-standing passion for the Chinese Tang Dynasty ceramic horse sculptures. I adore their stylized simplification of forms, not to mention their incredible craftsmanship! Using references from this visit, I’ve been doing a series I call Ancient Shapes. I wanted the fierce determination & fiery spirit of a polo pony from a thousand plus years ago to shine through in MY media & style.

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

SUSAN HART

Cozad, Nebraska

In the Art Spirit

Mixed Media

My approach to this piece was inspired by Henri’s painterly style and my color palette from many of his portraits.

“When the artist is alive in any person, whatever his kind of work may be, he becomes an inventive, searching, daring self-expressing creature…The world would stagnate without him….”   --Robert Henri

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

KEN HOSMER

North Platte, Nebraska

Rosalia

Oil

Robert Henri delighted in painting from native American and Hispanic models. He sought to reduce detail and emphasize the spirit of his subject.

“Try to reduce everything you see to the utmost simplicity. That is, let nothing but the things which are of the utmost importance to you have any place. The more simply you see, the more simply you will render.”

--Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

Spirit of Robert Henri Exhibit

BETH JASNOCH

Kearney, Nebraska

Altered History

Metal Sculpture

"We have our choice of living in the past or the future—the present being but for an instant. In the future, there is the reality. The past is the history of our failure in attaining it." ..Quote from Robert Henri

The bits and pieces in this rusty landscape vary in age. Some are new and smooth, others are over a hundred years old—weathered and timeworn—collected from fields, tracks, dusty roads, byways, and places untold. Imagine the stories they could tell. Discarded and cast aside with little thought, scraps of history, now rearranged and reconfigured into a new vista, chained together in this present time for a journey through another hundred years.