The Young Girl, 1915

  • Robert Cozad Henri, American, 1865 - 1929

Oil on canvas

  • Unframed: 41 × 33 inches (104.1 × 83.8 cm)
  • 48 13/16 × 40 11/16 × 2 7/8 inches (124 × 103.3 × 7.3 cm)

City of Detroit Purchase

19.148

On View

  • Modern, Level 2, North

Department

American Art before 1950

This work belongs to a little­known group of paintings of nudes by Henri from the mid-teens to the early 1920s. They were posed, for the most part, by professional models and were executed as a means of studying the human body. In paintings such as this, Henri does not attempt to evoke associational values or use the girl’s facial expression to establish rapport with the viewer. She serves instead as a vehicle with which to explore the more abstract qualities of rhythm, color, and volume.

Signed, lower left: Robert Henri

Robert Henri

1919-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)

Heitkamp, Ernest. "Paintings by Robert Henri." Bulletin of the DIA 1, 5 (February 1920): pp. 70-71. Perlman, Bernard B. Robert Henri: His Life and Art. New York, 1991. American Beauty: Painting and Sculpture from the Detroit Institute of Arts, 1770-1920. Exh. cat., Detroit Institute of Arts. Detroit, 2002, pp. 113-114, no. 84 (ill.).

Robert Cozad Henri, The Young Girl, 1915, oil on canvas. Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase, 19.148.