ROBERT HENRI

Robert Henri (American, 1865-1929), The Blue Kimono, 1909. Oil on canvas. New Orleans Museum of Art, Museum purchase through the Ella West Freeman Foundation Matching Fund.

Trained in Paris at the Academie Julien, Henri was influenced first by the Impressionists and then by the bravura brushwork of Velasquez, Hals, and Manet. In The Blue Kimono the artist returned to an interest in Asian subjects, first kindled in Paris in 1890 and at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Henri’s inspirations from Japan were a passing interest which sometimes reflected in his work. The Blue Kimono, a full length portrait of Miss Kaji, a model of American and Japanese heritages, was among the works shown in 1911 at the inaugural exhibition of the Issac Delgado Museum of Art, now the New Orleans Museum of Art.