68082: Robert Henri (American, 1865-1929) Blond Bridget

Robert Henri (American, 1865-1929) Blond Bridget Lavelle, 1928 Oil on canvas 28 x 20 inches (71.1 x 50.8 cm) Signed and inscribed with the artist's record book number on the reverse: Robert Henri PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED DALLAS COLLECTION PROVENANCE: The artist; Estate of the above; S. Turner, New Jersey; P. Nicholson, New Jersey; Norton Galleries, New York; Butkin Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio; Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, California; Private collection, Dallas, acquired from the above, February 6, 1971; By descent to the present owners. Robert Henri's masterful Blond Bridget Lavelle is a love letter to Ireland, his cherished home away from America and the inspiration for a vast and vital body of work from 1913 until the end of his life. His attraction to Ireland began growing in the early 1900s in New York. As the leader of the progressive Ashcan School, Henri, together with fellow artists John Sloan, George Bellows, William Glackens, and Everett Shinn, sought out Irish immigrant subjects for their urban realist paintings and illustrations. In 1908, Henri, who had distant Irish roots himself, married Marjorie Organ, a newspaper cartoonist and native Irishwoman, and they talked often of an eventual visit to the "homeland." The following year, the Irish artist and writer John Butler Yeats befriended Henri and introduced him to Irish-American literati--the patron John Quinn and the journalists Charles FitzGerald and Frederick James Gregg--who discussed politics and culture at "Yeats' court" behind a local restaurant. Yet perhaps the greatest impetus for Henri to visit Ireland was the international 1913 Armory Show, whose elevation of abstract over representational art ousted Henri as the longtime head of the New York vanguard. Eager for a fresh change of scenery and a refuge from art politics, Henri and Marjorie set sail for Ireland in the summer of 1913. It was during this first trip to Ireland that Henri discovered his ideal subject matter and work environment, ultimately making his Irish portraits "the most popular and identifiable of his oeuvre" (V. Leeds, From New York to Corrymore: Robert Henri and Ireland, Charlotte, 2011, p. 49). From Cork, the Henris headed north, exploring town after town until they came upon Achill Island on the western coast. Here, they found what they were seeking in the remote fishing village of Dooagh: a picturesque, traditional community of "little white cottages" unspoiled by modernity (Ibid., p. 54); authentic, colorful, and charming townsfolk willing to sit for portraits; and a stunning natural backdrop of heather-dotted mountains and virgin beaches. The couple rented a house outside of town, Corrymore, whose light-filled studio and views of the Cliffs of Minaun and Clare Island, stirred Henri to produce over 140 paintings in a short three-month period. While Henri painted both landscapes and portraits of the village elders upon his arrival, it was the children of Dooagh who fed his soul and became his staple subject. Art historian Valerie Leeds describes their modeling process: "The young models came to Corrymore in the afternoon by prior appointment. . . . Those old enough attended the Dooagh School, but would miss school to pose. . . . The children were fed lunch by Mary O'Donnell, the housekeeper, and would pose from one to three; the Henris would then have lunch, and the model would pose again until about 5:30. Marjorie generally arranged the sitters and their clothing—caps, capes, shawls, scarves, shirt openings, and the positioning of the figure—with an eye for the underlying geometric structure of the composition. The children were paid half a crown for each modeling session, an amount considered a man's good daily wage at that time, and they were often also given a small token gift or bag of candy. . . . Marjorie oversaw the music playing on the Victrola that entertained the models during sittings. . . . The children were ‘wild over it' . . . . Henri found that the Victrola was vital in keeping the sitters engaged while he painted them (Ibid., 62-3)." Henri wrote about these sessions: "I am not interested in making copies of pretty children. What I am after is the freshness and wonder of their spirit" (Ibid., 76). In an effort to capture the child's authenticity, he insisted that his models wear their everyday clothing, not their Sunday best as they often desired. Because the Achill Islanders' work clothing was handwoven and colored with vibrant natural dyes, Henri was readily able to indulge his interest in color as a "formal element and expressive means" (Ibid., p. 67). Marjorie recounted, "[there were] millions of all kinds of children in the most primitive dress—and the effects are stunning. . . . all the material for their cloths—such purples and reds—wonderful" (Ibid.) Financial troubles and the start of WW I kept the Henris from returning to Ireland for ten years, but after inheriting his mother's sizable estate in 1923, Henri and Marjorie purchased Corrymore on Achill Island, making it their permanent summer home until his death in 1929. These Irish "vacations" were enormously fruitful for Henri, resulting in scores of portraits each season, and allowing him to synthesize many of the realist principles he had formulated as an instructor at the Art Students League. Indeed, his portraits of young sitters like Michael Mac, Skipper Mick, Mary Ann Cafferty, and Mary O'Malley exemplify his teachings, published collectively in 1923 as The Art Spirit: "work with great speed" (p. 23); "the brushstroke [should be] visible on the canvas [with] a size . . . [and] its own texture" (p. 67); "color is a means of expression" (p. 155); "there is a super color which envelops all the colors . . . and is most important" (p. 5); the effect of brilliancy is to be obtained principally from the oppositions of cool colors with warm colors" (p. 54); "the simpler a background is the more mastery there must be in it" (p. 39); "the background has as much to do with the likeness as anything else [and] should be evoked by the figure" (p. 250); "good composition is like a suspension bridge, each line adds strength and takes none away" (p. 265). And perhaps most relevant to his Dooagh portraits, "If you paint children you must have no patronizing attitude toward them. Whoever approaches a child without humility, without wonderment and without infinite respect, misses in his judgment of what is before him, and loses an opportunity for a marvelous response. Children are greater than the grown man" (p. 234) (R. Henri, The Art Spirit, Philadelphia, 1923). The present magnificent lot stems from Henri's last summer on Achill Island, in 1928, when he made "some of his strongest child portraits, as in the . . . portraits of Bridget Lavelle" (Leeds, 82). Henri imaged several children in the extended Lavelle family, including Anthony and "wee Annie," and he painted at least three portraits of "blond" Bridget, calling her "the very good looking girl with the oval face" (Ibid.), and distinguishing her from a second, "dark" Bridget Lavelle. In these large-format (28 x 20") blond Bridget Lavelle portraits, Henri features the sitter in a ¾-length pose, accentuating her slightly turned, light-filled face, rosy cheeks and lips, and wavy hair falling upon her shoulders. True to his instructions in The Art Spirit, he spotlights his subject, reduces his palette to three or four colors, contrasts background and foreground colors, and utilizes gestural brushstrokes. Valerie Leeds further notes, "Evident in the late portraits, such as Blond Bridget Lavelle . . . is Henri's use of the subject as a suggestive framework, a study of color and form that only focuses on the face. The intellectualized conception of these portraits, these studies in visual harmony, represents Henri's closest proximity to abstraction. The torso and clothing of the models become only minimal painterly intimations made by broad undefined strokes of the paintbrush" (V. Leeds, My People: The Portraits of Robert Henri, Orlando, 1994, p. 41). Of the Bridget Lavelle portraits, Heritage's Blond Bridget Lavelle reveals the most vigorous background treatment—overlapping ochre passages applied with a palette knife--and the most dramatic coloration—Bridget's authentic, hand-dyed red sweater popping against the surrounding earth tones. This version of Bridget shows her shy and sweet side, as she sits on her hands and politely gazes at the artist. Having resided in the same Dallas family for nearly fifty years, as a gift from a husband to his wife, Blond Bridget Lavelle ultimately symbolizes the artist's gift to us: "Everywhere [in Ireland] I see at times this beautiful expression of the dignity of life, to which I respond with a wish to preserve this beauty of humanity for my friends to enjoy" (Henri, p. 142). HID03101062020 © 2020 Heritage Auctions | All Rights Reserved
Condition Report: Unlined canvas; minor surface dirt; craquelure with minor lifting, most notably in figure's face with a few tiny flakes of loss; a small flake of loss in hair to lower right of figure's face; under UV light, there appears to be a green discolored varnish layer.
Framed Dimensions 36 X 28 Inches