Mexican Girl with Oriental Scarf, c. 1916-22, oil on canvas, 23-15/16 x 20 in. Framed by Gill & Lagodich for Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Period c. 1928 American Arts and Crafts frame; Walfred Thulin, Boston maker; gilded hand-carved wood; hand-carved signature on verso THULIN WT 1928 #1994 #1995; molding width 2-5/8in. “Robert Henri painted sitters from many races, portraying them with his signature keen analysis of character and masterful brushwork. A 1914 trip inaugurated his long-standing fascination with the Southwest and the region’s ethnically diverse people. This interest was further fostered by multiple visits to northern New Mexico where he found subjects who reflected a blend of cultures, notably Mexican and local Native and Hispanic Americans. Henri acknowledged: “I am looking at each individual with the eager hope of finding something of the dignity of life…the humanity…. I do not wish to explain these people…. I only want to find whatever of the great spirit there is in the Southwest. If I can hold it on my canvas, I am satisfied.” —museum label Painting: Gift of Rilye (Toi) and George Ashby, 2010.39

My Friend Brien, 1913, oil on canvas, 41” x 33” Framed by Gill & Lagodich for the Mint Museum. Period c. 1920 American Arts and Crafts frame, gilded hand-carved wood. Molding width: 3” “Robert Henri was a charismatic and independent-minded teacher and artist, but he is best known today as the leader of the so-called “Ash Can School” of urban realists. His anti-academic stance that art should be based on the vibrant and frenetic life on the streets ruffled more than a few critical feathers, but served to unite the artists that gathered around him, such as George Bellows, George Luks, and Everett Shinn. Henri devoted much of his career to painting portraits—not only of prominent society figures, such as Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, but of people from all walks of life. Henri painted this picture of Brien O’Malley, his friend and guide, during his first visit to the town of Achill, Ireland, in 1913. With its bold brushwork and its unflinching depiction of O’Malley’s weather-beaten features, My Friend Brien is a clear testament to Henri’s belief that a painting should be as direct and frank a representation of its subject as possible. He wrote in 1915, just two years after completing this painting: “The people I like to paint are ‘my people,’ . . . people through whom the dignity of life is manifest . . . wherever I find them . . . my impulse immediately is to tell about them through my own language—drawing and painting in color.” —Mint Museum label