Robert Henri was born Robert Henry Cozad (American 1865 – 1929) He was a painter, teacher and a distant cousin of Mary Cassatt. He studied at the Académie Julian under the academic realist William-Adolphe Bouguereau, but came to admire the work of the Impressionists. He also studied under American Impressionist Robert Vonnoh and developed forceful brushwork and intense color effects.
Henri pioneered the Ashcan School of American realism, depicting urban life in uncompromising reality, and was an organizer of the independent artists’ exhibition group,“The Eight.” In the spring of 1929, Henri was named as one of the top three living American artists by the Arts Council of New York.
From 1915 to 1927, he was a popular and influential teacher at the Art Students League of New York. his students included Edward Hopper, Rockwell Kent, George Bellows and Adele Goodman Clark.
Meryl Ann Butler studied with Harold Stevenson,
who studied with Louis Bouche,
who studied with Dimitri Romanovsky,
who studied with Robert Henri.
