Robert Henry: Portrait of the Artist at 90
Provincetown Magazine
by Lee Roscoe July 13, 2023
Listening Through the Snow, 1998 (oil on hypro, mounted, 18x24”)
Painter Robert (Bob) Henry says, “People think I’m a famous artist, but I’m not.” And yet, his work is in a number of museums around the country, and he is having a “mini retrospective” of about 60 small pieces at Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown and hopes that someday a museum will do the same for his massive body of works. His 90th birthday is in August.
Heart Hat, 2019
(ink on paper, 11×8.5”)
Growing up in Brooklyn, N.Y., there was no exposure to art—maybe one museum trip, but when he began to hang out with a group of jazz musicians jamming in a basement, he decided that to be a part of this creativity, he would become an artist. A good friend’s elder brother introduced Bob to the abstract expressionist Grace Hartigan who suggested Bob study with Hans Hoffman, which he did at age 19, in both New York and on Cape Cod.
