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Henri, Robert
(American, 1865-1929)
The Art Student (Miss Josephine Nivison)
1906
Oil on canvas
77 1/4 x 38 1/2 in.
MACI purchase Acquisition Fund
M1965.34

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A leading member of the group of American realists known as The Eight and a prominent teacher in New York, Robert Henri was a famous and respected force for modernism at the beginning of the 20th century.

Efforts by Henri and others led to the breakthrough Armory Show of 1913 that virtually introduced avant-garde art to America. In his urban scenes and in portraits such as this likeness of an art student, Henri pursued naturalism and a sense of freshness and spontaneity that rejected the formal conservatism of academic art and its institutions.

Finding his inspiration in Dutch and Spanish 17th-century genre painting, Henri rendered this full-length portrait in lively brush strokes that heighten the immediacy of the moment. Casually disheveled, brushes in hand, Miss Nivison gazes levelly at the viewer as if interrupted at her work.

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