The Ashcan School of Art

The realist art Ashcan School was led by a gambler's son Robert Henri (1865-1929). Henri (born Robert Henry Cozad) changed his name after his father shot another man over a cattle grazing dispute. Henri led a dynamic career, teaching at the New York School of Art, the Philadelphia School of Design for Women and in private lessons. He established the first nonjuried no-prize art show in the United States to combat biases (the 1910 Exhibition of Independent Artists) and spent half a year annually on the western coast of Ireland. His first wife, Linda Craige, died in 1905 and he publicly claimed his heart was broken. Catching his eye at a masquerade ball in 1907 was Irish cartoonist Marjorie Organ (1886-1930). Realizing he had painted her in 1903 after spotting her mane of golden red hair on the L train, Henri was instantly in love. Thinking she was a model, he was shocked to discover she was also a working artist. The two hurried to Connecticut for a quick wedding and then honeymooned in Spain with Henri's students. Organ would pose dozens of times for her husband and display her work alongside his at the electrifying 1913 Armory Show which forever changed American art. Providing a real contest to cubism and modernism, Henri and the Ashcan School insisted on American working-class realism.

Sources:

Robert Henri, The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/henri-robert/

Letter : Robert Henri to Linda Craige Henri, 1902, https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/10268423

Prabook, Robert Henri, https://prabook.com/web/robert.henri/1109365

Lambiek, Marjorie Organ, https://www.lambiek.net/artists/o/organ_marjorie.htm

Art in Embassies, Robert Henri, U.S. State Department, https://art.state.gov/personnel/robert_henri/

Marjorie Organ, USA Painter, https://usa-painter.org/american-painters/19th-century/marjorie-organ/

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