Lot Essay
A New Mexico Boy, painted by Robert Henri on his first trip to Santa Fe in 1916, is a marvelous example of the roughly thirty portraits executed during Henri's three summers in New Mexico. Henri initially went to the Southwest at the invitation of Dr. Edgar L. Hewett, an esteemed scholar and the Director of the American School of Research in Santa Fe. Although asked to paint the Indians by Hewett, Henri did not do so in order to record a vanishing civilization nor to romanticize a picturesque and exotic culture. Rather, Henri was following his interest in humanity which permeated all of his sitters whether found in France, Ireland, Holland, Spain or across America.
Immediately setting himself apart from the majority of artists working in the American West, Henri said the following about his artistic intentions in New Mexico. "I have been reproached with not adding to my study of these people the background of their lives. This has astonished me because all their lives are in their expressions, in their eyes, their movements, or they are not worth translating into art. I was not interested in these people to sentimentalize over them, to mourn over the fact that we have destroyed the Indian...This is not what I am on the outlook for...I am looking at each individual with the eager hope of finding there something of the dignity of life, the humor, the humanity, the kindness, something of the order that will rescue the race and the nation. That is what I have wanted to talk about and nothing else. The landscape, the houses, the workshops of these people are not necessary. I do not wish to explain the people, I do not wish to preach through them, I only want to find whatever of the great spirit there is in the Southwest." (R. Henri, The Art Spirit, New York, 1984, pp. 148-149)
Painted in a bold and daring palette, with thick painterly brushstrokes, A New Mexico Boy is a powerful image evocative of the rich and culturally multifaceted community of which the sitter is a part. With a beautiful brown complexion, rosy cheeks and fire-red lips, this young boy clad in brilliant blues sits against a vague, nondescript background. This purposeful elimination of props and setting detail places the emphasis on the sitter who confronts the viewer head-on.
By 1916, when Henri made his first trip to New Mexico, he was a widely recognized and celebrated teacher, leader and spokesman of New York's most progressive artists. Armed with the knowledge of the latest artistic theories, specifically Jay Hambidge's Dynammic Symmetry and Maretta's System of Colors, Henri introduced to the colonies of Santa Fe and Taos a realist's vision, grounded in a search for scientific order. This realist approach to painting was very influential and soon marked the canvases of several artists creating Indian genre scenes, notably Blumenschein, Ufer, Couse and Sharp.
This painting was recorded as number "199" in the artist's record book "J."
Immediately setting himself apart from the majority of artists working in the American West, Henri said the following about his artistic intentions in New Mexico. "I have been reproached with not adding to my study of these people the background of their lives. This has astonished me because all their lives are in their expressions, in their eyes, their movements, or they are not worth translating into art. I was not interested in these people to sentimentalize over them, to mourn over the fact that we have destroyed the Indian...This is not what I am on the outlook for...I am looking at each individual with the eager hope of finding there something of the dignity of life, the humor, the humanity, the kindness, something of the order that will rescue the race and the nation. That is what I have wanted to talk about and nothing else. The landscape, the houses, the workshops of these people are not necessary. I do not wish to explain the people, I do not wish to preach through them, I only want to find whatever of the great spirit there is in the Southwest." (R. Henri, The Art Spirit, New York, 1984, pp. 148-149)
Painted in a bold and daring palette, with thick painterly brushstrokes, A New Mexico Boy is a powerful image evocative of the rich and culturally multifaceted community of which the sitter is a part. With a beautiful brown complexion, rosy cheeks and fire-red lips, this young boy clad in brilliant blues sits against a vague, nondescript background. This purposeful elimination of props and setting detail places the emphasis on the sitter who confronts the viewer head-on.
By 1916, when Henri made his first trip to New Mexico, he was a widely recognized and celebrated teacher, leader and spokesman of New York's most progressive artists. Armed with the knowledge of the latest artistic theories, specifically Jay Hambidge's Dynammic Symmetry and Maretta's System of Colors, Henri introduced to the colonies of Santa Fe and Taos a realist's vision, grounded in a search for scientific order. This realist approach to painting was very influential and soon marked the canvases of several artists creating Indian genre scenes, notably Blumenschein, Ufer, Couse and Sharp.
This painting was recorded as number "199" in the artist's record book "J."