Robert Henry: Still Riffing After All These Years
In a pandemic’s isolation, he finds joy in art
SOURCE: PROVINCETOWN INDEPENDENT BY HOWARD KARREN AUG 25, 2021
In the fall of 2019, before the Covid lockdown, Robert Henry had a memorable solo show called “Ship of State” at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in Dennis. The many large paintings in that exhibit depicted people in boats at sea in what appeared to be desperate attempts to survive. Some of the subjects might have been refugees navigating massive waves; others, shipwreck survivors in lifeboats. The overall mood of the work, despite the gorgeous swaths of blue and green ocean, was unequivocally grim.
When asked at the time why he would focus on such horrific circumstances, Henry noted ironically, “I’m not in favor of drowning. It’s more about how you paint the water.”
Nearly two years later, the Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, which has represented Henry for decades, is offering a show of his work called “Solo Moments,” and the mood is anything but grim. The paintings are mostly smaller, many from Henry’s “hat” series, in which subjects who often resemble the artist himself wear jaunty headwear that may or may not reveal something about them. The paintings are fanciful, sensitive, and, generally, filled with mirth.
BERTA WALKER GALLERY: “Solo Moments,” an exhibit of artwork by Robert Henry, alongside work by Brenda Horowitz, Peter Watts, Penelope Jencks, Salvatore Del Deo, Selina Trieff, Sky Power, and Polly Burnell Through September 11, 2021.
Robert Henry at the Aug. 21 opening of his Berta Walker Gallery show in Provincetown. The ink drawings behind him are studies for some of the exhibit’s oil paintings. (Photo Howard Karren)
Three Triangle Hat With Plumb Bob (2019), a 24-by-18-inch oil on canvas, is one of Henry’s “hat” paintings. (Photo courtesy Berta Walker Gallery)
