Robert Henri papers
name: label: Creator
content: Henri, Robert, 1865-1929
label: Names
content: Calder, Alexander Stirling, 1870-1945
label: Names
content: Henri, Linda Craige
label: Names
content: Organ, Marjorie, b. 1886
label: Names
content: Sloan, John, 1871-1951
topic: label: Occupation
content: Painters -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Occupation
content: Educators -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Occupation
content: Portrait painters -- New York (State) -- New York
label: Topic
content: Eight (Group of American artists)
label: Topic
content: Scrapbooks
label: Topic
content: Ashcan school of art
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: The bulk of the collection was donated to the Archives of American Art in 2025 by Janet LeClair. Henri's 1891 diary was purchased by the Archives of American Art in 1991 from Weschler's Auction House in Washington, D.C. with funds from the Joseph Coudon VII Memorial Fund, established by Katherine H. Coudon in memory of her son. The letter to Mrs. Jesse C. Greene and 1914 new years card were donated between 1955-1962 by Charles E. Feinberg, an active donor and friend of AAA.
creator: label: Creator
content: Henri, Robert, 1865-1929
setName: label: See more items in
content: Robert Henri papers
abstract: label: Summary
content: The papers of painter and educator Robert Henri measure 2.8 linear feet and date from 1867-2001 with the bulk of the material dating from 1880-1929. The collection documents Henri's life and career through biographical material, correspondence with family and other artists, diaries and journal excerpts of Henri and family members, printed material and clippings scrapbooks documenting Henri's career and his teaching and artistic influence from the late 1800s, scrapbooks of photographs of his artwork, and photographs of Henri, his family, friends and fellow artists, and art schools of the late 19th and early 20th century.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: New York painter and educator Robert Henri (1865-1929) was one of the progressive founders of the Ashcan school of urban realism, an influential teacher, and a portrait painter known for painting subjects from socially and racially diverse backgrounds.

Henri was born Robert Henry Cozad in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of professional gambler and real estate developer John J. Cozad and his wife Theresa Gatewood Cozad. John J. Cozad founded the town of Cozad, Nebraska in 1872 but the family fled east when Henri's father shot and killed a rancher over a land dispute and was indicted for manslaughter. Although Cozad was later exonerated, the family nevertheless settled in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the early 1880s and Henri's parents changed their names to Richard Henry Lee and Theresa Lee. Robert Henry Cozad became Robert Earl Henri, and his brother John changed his name to Frank L. Southrn.

Henri studied under Thomas Anshutz, Thomas Hovenden, and James B. Kelly  at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia before traveling to Paris in 1888 and enrolling at the Académie Julian. While in Europe he traveled to Brittany, Barbizon, and Italy, studied at the École des Beaux-Arts for a year, and then returned to Philadelphia to continue his studies in 1892. Henri subsequently began an influential career as an art teacher, teaching at the School of Design for Women and later the New York School of Art (formerly the Chase school). By this time he had met a group of Philadelphia newspaper illustrators, including William Glackens, George Lucks, Everett Shinn, and John Sloan who, like him, went on to pursue painting careers in New York. 

Rejecting impressionism and the academic tradition of painting, Henri worked with urban realist subjects and around 1902 began to specialize in portraiture. He was elected to the National Academy of Design in 1906 but when the work of his friends was rejected for the Academy's 1907 annual show, Henri decided to organize an independent exhibition of their work. The result was the Macbeth Gallery show The Eight of February 1908. Henri then organized the first Exhibition of Independent Artists in 1910 and with Glackens, Luks, Sloan, and others, was known as a founder of the Ashcan school of art. 

Henri continued teaching throughout his life, including establishing and running his own Henri School of Painting from 1909-1912 and teaching at the Art Students League in New York from 1915-1928. His ideas on art were collected by former pupil Margery Ryerson and published in 1923 as The Art Spirit. 

Henri married artist and former pupil Linda Craige in 1898 and the two enjoyed the company of Henri's circle of fellow artists including John Sloan and his first wife Dolly, before Linda died at the age of 30 in 1905. Henri remarried in 1908 to illustrator Marjorie Organ and the couple traveled regularly to Ireland, buying a home on Achill Island in 1924. Henri died of cancer in 1929.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 2.8 Linear Feet
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1867-2001
label: Date
content: bulk 1890-1929
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.henrrobe
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Sketchbooks
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: The collection is arranged as seven series.

Series 1: Biographical and Family Material, 1867-1907 (6 folders; Box 1)

Series 2: Correspondence, 1890-1929, 2001 (0.15 linear feet; Box 1)

Series 3: Diaries and Journals, 1878-circa 1910s (7 folders; Box 1)

Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1898-1930s (6 folders; Box 1)

Series 5: Printed Material, 1885-1998 (0.15 linear feet; Box 1)

Series 6: Scrapbooks, 1875-1954 (2 linear feet; Boxes 1-7)

Series 7: Photographs, circa 1875-circa 1960s (0.3 linear feet; Boxes 1, 7)
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: All accessions were merged and the collection was processed and a finding aid prepared by Stephanie Ashley in 2025 with funding provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: The letter to Mrs. Jesse C. Green is available on 35mm microfilm reel D10 (fr. 1279) available for use at Archives of American Art offices. The Robert Henri papers, 1857-1958, are at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. Of the material at Yale, twenty-six diaries, dating from 1880 to 1928, as well as some writings, scrapbooks, printed material, and miscellany dating from 1880 to 1954, are available on microfilm reels 885-887 through the Archives of American Art. A Robert Henri diary, May to November 1880, is located at the Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, and is available on microfilm reel 1654 through the Archives of American Art.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Sketchbooks
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: The papers of painter and educator Robert Henri measure 2.8 linear feet and date from 1867-2001 with the bulk of the material dating from 1880-1929. The collection documents Henri's life and career through biographical material, correspondence with family and other artists, diaries and journal excerpts of Henri and family members, printed material and clippings scrapbooks documenting Henri's career and his teaching and artistic influence from the late 1800s, scrapbooks of photographs of his artwork, and photographs of Henri, his family, friends and fellow artists, and art schools of the late 19th and early 20th century.
 
Biographical and family material includes documentation of Henri's family background, with material related to the family's property in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and fragments of writings including a partial essay about Henri's life by an unknown author.

Correspondence includes letters from Henri's first wife Linda, his mother Theresa Lee Henry, and his father Richard Lee Henry that provide evidence of Henri's activities around the turn of the century. Letters from artists include 2 folders of correspondence with John Sloan from the period during leading up to and following the exhibition of The Eight at Macbeth Gallery.

Diaries and journals include those of Linda Henri and Theresa Henry Lee documenting the daily activities of Linda and Henri and Linda's final illness and death. Other diary and journal fragments document Henri's activities in Europe and the United States from the 1890s to circa 1910 and include a transcript from a notebook by Henri recording the family's move from Nebraska. 

Personal business records include lists of artwork with prices, income records for 1928, receipts from Henri's time in Paris circa 1898, and a list for a possible retrospective of his work.

Printed material consists of clippings documenting Henri's career. The bulk of the printed material can be found in the collection's scrapbooks which provide a detailed record of Henri's career from around 1888 to his death, and include clippings documenting his legacy post-1929. The scrapbooks also include photos of Henri's artwork. Additional photos of Henri, family and friends, artist colleagues, schools in which Henri taught, and his studios can be found in Series 7: Photographs.
separatedmaterial: label: Separated Materials
content: Also found in the Archives is material lent for microfilming on reels 885-887 that includes 25 diaries kept by Robert Henri, August 15, 1881 to October 20, 1928; and material lent for microfilming on reel 1654 that includes Robert Henri diary, May to November 1880. Loaned materials were returned to the donor after microfilming and are not described in the collection container inventory.

Material on reels 885-887 was lent by Janet LeClair, the widow of John LeClair, nephew of Henri's sister-in-law, Violet Organ. Organ inherited these papers and planned on using them in a biography of Henri which was never written. The papers passed to John LeClair upon Organ's death in 1959 and were subsequently donated to Yale University. Organ donated other Henri papers, including correspondence, notes, notebooks, photographs and other manuscript material, to Yale University's Beinecke Library in the 1960s. 

The diary on reel 1654 was lent by Dr. Robert Gatewood, a cousin of Robert Henri, who reported that he had at one time possessed several of Henri's illustrated boyhood stories and other diaries which were all destroyed in a fire. The original diary was returned to Dr. Gatewood after microfilming, and is now located at the Sheldon Museum of Art, University of Nebraska, Lincoln.