Robert Henri (1865-1929), La Trinidad (Gypsy of Madrid), 1906, oil on canvas, 78 x 38.5 inches;
Robert Henri
(1865-1929)
La Trinidad (Gypsy of Madrid), 1906
oil on canvas
signed lower left: Robert Henri
verso: signed and titled; label, Carolina Art Association
78 x 38.5 inches; 85.5 x 46.25 inches (frame)
Proceeds of the sale of this lot to benefit the direct care of collections at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Provenance: Chapellier Galleries, New York
Jasper D. Ackerman (purchased from above, 1970)
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (gifted by above, 1978)
Exhibited: New York School of Art Galleries, January 14-26, 1907
Carolina Art Association Annual Exhibition of Paintings. Gibbes Memorial Art Building, Charleston, South Carolina, March 1909
"Spanish Sojourns: Robert Henri and the Spirit of Spain." Telfair Museum, Savannah, Georgia, October 18, 2013 - March 9, 2014
Literature: American Art News, January 19, 1907.
Mentioned in a letter from Robert Henri to his parents, dated June 29, 1906.
"Spanish Sojourns: Robert Henri and the Spirit of Spain." Telfair Books, Savannah, Georgia, 2013. Cat. no. 5, ill. pp.12, 21, 85.
A Romani woman from Madrid, Spain, with hand on hip challenges the viewer of this Robert Henri masterpiece. Wearing a traditional Romani loose-fitting blouse, heavy pleated polka dot skirts, apron, angora sheepskin vest, headscarf (tied around her neck), and ear bangles, La Trinidad encapsulates the multi-ethnic Andalusian culture that Henri captured in this stunning full-length portrait.
A giant in early 20th-century American art, Robert Henri (pronounced HEN-RYE) studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Académie Julian and École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He taught at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, the New York School of Art and was elected to the National Academy of Design (NAD) in 1906. Henri organized a radical exhibition in 1908 including his paintings and those of William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, and Arthur B. Davies. Called “The Eight” these artists came to be called the “Ashcan School.” In 1913, Henri was included in the “Armory Show” and continued to be an influential and popular teacher at the progressive Art Students League in New York from 1915 until 1927.
A fascination with Spain spawned a “Spanish craze” in the United States from the 1890s through the 1920s that deeply influenced history, literature, art, culture, architecture, and food in the US. Captivated by Spain’s multiethnic culture, painter Robert Henri traveled to Spain seven times between 1900 and 1926.
His Spanish portraits include dancers, bullfighters, street performers, peasants, and “gypsies.” (“Gypsy” is a derogatory term for the Romani, an ethnic group which originated in modern India.) Henri’s Spanish Roma Woman (The Spanish Gypsy), painted in 1912, was part of the Armory Show and became the first painting of the Ashcan School purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The model for La Trinidad may have affected Henri so deeply that the sitters in his late portraits Spanish Gypsy (Dolores) and Dolores (Gypsy), Madrid, Spain, both 1924, look remarkably similar to "La Trinidad".
Henri’s Spanish portraits, including "La Trinidad", reflect the influence of Spanish masters Diego Velasquez and Francisco Goya, and the Dutch master Frans Hals, whose work he studied in the Prado. He exhibited "La Trinidad" in New York and Philadelphia in 1907. Henri also visited Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1916, 1917, 1922, and 1925, producing thirty portraits of Hispano and Native American subjects. Henri’s biographer, William Innes Homer, stated that Santa Fe reminded Henri of Spain. His 1914 remarks regarding his Southwestern portraits applies retroactively to "La Trinidad":
“… all their lives are in their expressions, in their eyes, their movements, or they are not worth translating into art. I was not interested in these people to sentimentalize over them…I am looking at each individual with the eager hope of finding there something of the dignity of life…”
"La Trinidad" graced the cover of Dean Krakel’s 1977 memoir, Adventures in Western Art. Largely a series of Krakel’s reminiscences as a “wheeler/dealer” in historic Western American art while working at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, and as founding director of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame & Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, he recounted in the endnotes his “bagging” of La Trinidad:
“I bought [for the Hall] the Henri painting 'La Trinidad' after seeing it in the Henri exhibition at the Huntington Hartford Museum, N.Y.C. I went straight from the exhibit to the Chapellier Gallery, where I told Robert Chaellier that I was interested in the painting. He quoted $32,000 as the price. I replied that it was too rich for our blood and for him to think it over and let me know. On February 27, 1970 he wrote, ‘Our asking price for the painting is $32,000. As a special private offering to you and your museum we could make the price to $24,000. This could be paid over a period of eighteen months with a token down payment of $4,000. This offer is made primarily to please you and have something from our gallery at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.’”
Evidently, Jasper Ackerman of Colorado Springs, then a member of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame’s board of trustees, purchased the painting "La Trinidad" in 1970 and gave it to the Hall in 1977.
Krakel evidently understood the significance of Spain in telling the stories of “the real builders of the West” and saw "La Trinidad" as both a great painting and a gateway to the Spanish West. National Cowboy Hall of Fame founder Chester Reynolds sought to “guard, cherish and advance the heritage and romance of the West” by maintaining “a museum for the personal effects, relics, and mementos of those honored and other items of Western lore.” While seeking great works of art depicting the American West, Krakel also acquired for the museum paintings by Henri’s peers in New Mexico, such as Walter Ufer, E. I Couse, Ernest Blumenschein, and Nicolai Fechin. Robert Henri’s La Trinidad reminded visitors to the National Cowboy Museum about Spanish contributions to the multiethnic American West for almost fifty years.
"Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable, and we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life's experience." Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, 1923.
Michael R. Grauer
Historian of the American West
Buyer's Premium
27%
Robert Henri
(1865-1929)
La Trinidad (Gypsy of Madrid), 1906
oil on canvas
signed lower left: Robert Henri
verso: signed and titled; label, Carolina Art Association
78 x 38.5 inches; 85.5 x 46.25 inches (frame)
Proceeds of the sale of this lot to benefit the direct care of collections at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Provenance: Chapellier Galleries, New York
Jasper D. Ackerman (purchased from above, 1970)
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (gifted by above, 1978)
Exhibited: New York School of Art Galleries, January 14-26, 1907
Carolina Art Association Annual Exhibition of Paintings. Gibbes Memorial Art Building, Charleston, South Carolina, March 1909
"Spanish Sojourns: Robert Henri and the Spirit of Spain." Telfair Museum, Savannah, Georgia, October 18, 2013 - March 9, 2014
Literature: American Art News, January 19, 1907.
Mentioned in a letter from Robert Henri to his parents, dated June 29, 1906.
"Spanish Sojourns: Robert Henri and the Spirit of Spain." Telfair Books, Savannah, Georgia, 2013. Cat. no. 5, ill. pp.12, 21, 85.
A Romani woman from Madrid, Spain, with hand on hip challenges the viewer of this Robert Henri masterpiece. Wearing a traditional Romani loose-fitting blouse, heavy pleated polka dot skirts, apron, angora sheepskin vest, headscarf (tied around her neck), and ear bangles, La Trinidad encapsulates the multi-ethnic Andalusian culture that Henri captured in this stunning full-length portrait.
A giant in early 20th-century American art, Robert Henri (pronounced HEN-RYE) studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Académie Julian and École des Beaux Arts in Paris. He taught at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, the New York School of Art and was elected to the National Academy of Design (NAD) in 1906. Henri organized a radical exhibition in 1908 including his paintings and those of William Glackens, George Luks, Everett Shinn, John Sloan, Maurice Prendergast, Ernest Lawson, and Arthur B. Davies. Called “The Eight” these artists came to be called the “Ashcan School.” In 1913, Henri was included in the “Armory Show” and continued to be an influential and popular teacher at the progressive Art Students League in New York from 1915 until 1927.
A fascination with Spain spawned a “Spanish craze” in the United States from the 1890s through the 1920s that deeply influenced history, literature, art, culture, architecture, and food in the US. Captivated by Spain’s multiethnic culture, painter Robert Henri traveled to Spain seven times between 1900 and 1926.
His Spanish portraits include dancers, bullfighters, street performers, peasants, and “gypsies.” (“Gypsy” is a derogatory term for the Romani, an ethnic group which originated in modern India.) Henri’s Spanish Roma Woman (The Spanish Gypsy), painted in 1912, was part of the Armory Show and became the first painting of the Ashcan School purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The model for La Trinidad may have affected Henri so deeply that the sitters in his late portraits Spanish Gypsy (Dolores) and Dolores (Gypsy), Madrid, Spain, both 1924, look remarkably similar to "La Trinidad".
Henri’s Spanish portraits, including "La Trinidad", reflect the influence of Spanish masters Diego Velasquez and Francisco Goya, and the Dutch master Frans Hals, whose work he studied in the Prado. He exhibited "La Trinidad" in New York and Philadelphia in 1907. Henri also visited Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1916, 1917, 1922, and 1925, producing thirty portraits of Hispano and Native American subjects. Henri’s biographer, William Innes Homer, stated that Santa Fe reminded Henri of Spain. His 1914 remarks regarding his Southwestern portraits applies retroactively to "La Trinidad":
“… all their lives are in their expressions, in their eyes, their movements, or they are not worth translating into art. I was not interested in these people to sentimentalize over them…I am looking at each individual with the eager hope of finding there something of the dignity of life…”
"La Trinidad" graced the cover of Dean Krakel’s 1977 memoir, Adventures in Western Art. Largely a series of Krakel’s reminiscences as a “wheeler/dealer” in historic Western American art while working at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, and as founding director of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame & Western Heritage Center in Oklahoma City, he recounted in the endnotes his “bagging” of La Trinidad:
“I bought [for the Hall] the Henri painting 'La Trinidad' after seeing it in the Henri exhibition at the Huntington Hartford Museum, N.Y.C. I went straight from the exhibit to the Chapellier Gallery, where I told Robert Chaellier that I was interested in the painting. He quoted $32,000 as the price. I replied that it was too rich for our blood and for him to think it over and let me know. On February 27, 1970 he wrote, ‘Our asking price for the painting is $32,000. As a special private offering to you and your museum we could make the price to $24,000. This could be paid over a period of eighteen months with a token down payment of $4,000. This offer is made primarily to please you and have something from our gallery at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame.’”
Evidently, Jasper Ackerman of Colorado Springs, then a member of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame’s board of trustees, purchased the painting "La Trinidad" in 1970 and gave it to the Hall in 1977.
Krakel evidently understood the significance of Spain in telling the stories of “the real builders of the West” and saw "La Trinidad" as both a great painting and a gateway to the Spanish West. National Cowboy Hall of Fame founder Chester Reynolds sought to “guard, cherish and advance the heritage and romance of the West” by maintaining “a museum for the personal effects, relics, and mementos of those honored and other items of Western lore.” While seeking great works of art depicting the American West, Krakel also acquired for the museum paintings by Henri’s peers in New Mexico, such as Walter Ufer, E. I Couse, Ernest Blumenschein, and Nicolai Fechin. Robert Henri’s La Trinidad reminded visitors to the National Cowboy Museum about Spanish contributions to the multiethnic American West for almost fifty years.
"Art cannot be separated from life. It is the expression of the greatest need of which life is capable, and we value art not because of the skilled product, but because of its revelation of a life's experience." Robert Henri, The Art Spirit, 1923.
Michael R. Grauer
Historian of the American West
Buyer's Premium
27%
