Lady in Black Bookmark

Robert Henri (American, 1865–1929)
Lady in Black with Spanish Scarf (Portrait of O) (detail), 1910

One might not guess, looking at this delicate portrait, that Robert Henri led the gritty, muscular Ash Can School of social realist painters. Born Robert Henry Cozad in Cincinnati, Henri lived for some years in Paris, first studying and then teaching there. Back home, he taught at the Women’s School of Design, urging his students to aspire through their work to be “a social force that changes the world.” Henri’s ideas were taken up by Edward Hopper, John Sloan, Rockwell Kent, and a number of other major twentieth-century artists.