Jessica Penn in Black with White Plumes

Robert Henri painted fast, loose portraits with dark backgrounds and bright, direct faces. He wanted painting to deal with real people and modern city life, and he pushed a whole generation of American artists in that direction. Born in Cincinnati, he trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and in Paris at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts. Back in the United States he became the leading figure of the Ashcan School and one of The Eight, the group that exhibited together in 1908 against the conservative National Academy of Design. He was also an influential teacher, and his students included Edward Hopper, George Bellows and Stuart Davis. Later he painted children and sitters in Ireland on Achill Island and in Santa Fe. His portraits, such as Boy with a Green Cap and Bridget in Red, are full of visible brushwork and quick, confident colour.