Sylvester

Robert Henri’s Sylvester belongs to a group of about 25 extant portraits that the artist made in California during the summer of 1914, following his participation in the groundbreaking 1913 Armory Show in New York. Henri spent that summer in La Jolla, a seaside city north of San Diego, with his wife and fellow artist, Marjorie Organ Henri (1886–1930), and his sister-in-law, Violet Organ. There he painted numerous portraits of Marjorie and Violet as well as pictures of Native Americans, Mexican- and Chinese-Americans, and a local African American newsboy named Sylvester Cunningham Smith. Although little is known about Sylvester today, Henri considered him a “great youngster” and an “irresistible” subject, even though the young boy often fell asleep while sitting for his portraits.

In Sylvester, the boy—dressed in a white patterned shirt and brown knickerbockers held up by suspenders—sits erect, gazing directly at the viewer. As in his most daring La Jolla portraits, Henri depicted Sylvester before a brightly colored, abstract background of expressive brush strokes that focuses attention on the sitter’s nuanced expression. He painted few portraits of African Americans during his long career, but in 1914 he produced three of Sylvester—Sylvester Smiling (private collection), The Failure of Sylvester (Cheekwood Botanical Garden & Museum of Art, Nashville, Tennessee), and the Terra Foundation’s work. Of Henri’s three portraits of Sylvester, only the Terra Foundation’s version features the colorful, bold setting characteristic of the artist’s other La Jolla portraits, which were a significant departure from the dark neutral backgrounds the artist employed in the majority of his early twentieth-century portraits. Sylvester is representative of Henri’s best work in child portraiture, a major part of his oeuvre from about 1900 until his death in 1929. In his influential text The Art Spirit, Henri sought in his young portrait subjects “…symbols of greatness… [which] may be found in the eyes of a child… To hold the spirit of greatness is in my mind what the world was created for.”

Robert Henri Memorial Exhibition, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 9–April 19, 1931

 In the Streets: Modern Life and Urban Experiences in the Art of the United States, 1893-1976 (Pelas ruas: vida moderna e experiências urbanas na arte dos Estados Unidos, 1893–1976). Terra Foundation for American Art and Pinacoteca de São Paulo (organizers). Venue: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, August 27, 2022–January 30, 2023. [exh. cat.]

 

Catalogue of a Memorial Exhibition of the Work of Robert Henri, New York, New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1931. Text p.10, no. 58; ill. no. 58 (black & white).

Jordan, June. Who Look at Me. New York, New York: T.Y. Crowell & Co., 1969, p. 41, illustrated.

Perlman, Bennard B. Robert Henri: His Life and Art. New York, New York: Dover Publications, 1991. Text p.115.

Cartwright, Derrick R. and Valerie Ann Leeds. Robert Henri's California: Realism, Race, and Region, 1914–1925. (exh. cat. Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California). Laguna Beach, California: Laguna Beach Art Museum and Fullerton, California: California State University, 2014. Text pp. 22, 23; ill. p. 22, fig. 19 (black & white); p. 48, no. 7 (black & white).

Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text p. 193; ill. p. 193 (color).

 Piccoli, Valéria, Fernanda Pitta, and Taylor Poulin. Pelas ruas: vida moderna e experiências urbanas na arte dos Estados Unidos, 1893-1976. (exh. cat., Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo and Terra Foundation for American Art). São Paulo, Brazil: Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, 2022. Pl. p. 63 (color).