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About William P. Henderson
Largely associated with the Santa Fe-Taos *artists’ colonies, Henderson grew up in Massachusetts then moved to a cattle farm in Texas, then to Clifton, Kansas. Back in his home state, Henderson enrolled at the *School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston under *Edmund Tarbell (1899) then he toured Europe on the *Paige Scholarship (1901-03). Roughly between 1904 and 1915, Henderson lived in Chicago and Lake Bluff, Illinois, exhibiting portraits, *picturesque views, and *Whistler-inspired compositions, and teaching at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. His pastel, The Old Fruit Store (Ogden Collection of Southern Art) is heavily indebted to Whistler in its composition, the sketchy contours, and even the gold color of the paper.
While Henderson’s works show the influence of *Japonisme and the *Nabis, he seems to have by-passed impressionism to work in various *post-impressionistic modes, using *high-keyed color. *James William Pattison regarded Henderson’s style as mysterious and poetic, placing him in the Symbolist group. Henderson did illustration work, painted murals, and delighted critics with his subtle pastels. Once in Santa Fe in 1916, Henderson experimented in various modernist modes to arrive at a creative eclecticism, in which everything from Oriental philosophy to Dynamic Symmetry played a part. He was one of the founders of the New Mexico Painters group in 1923 and two years later he formed the Pueblo-Spanish Building Company and began to design furniture. Carl Sandburg wrote on Henderson’s impressive works in his special exhibition in January of 1921 at the *Art Institute of Chicago.
REF.
Church, 1905; Museum of New Mexico, 1963; Roswell Museum and Art Center, 1964; Robertson and Nestor, 1976, pp. 9, 39-40, 44-45; Breeskin, 1978-B; Feldman, 1982; Hirschl and Adler Galleries, 1985, cat. no. 31; Eldredge, Schimmel, and Truettner, 1986, pp. 134, 167, 168, 197; Karlstrom, 1988; Gerdts, 1990, vol. 2, pp. 318-319; D’Emilio and Campbell, 1991, pp. 124-125; Delehanty, 1996, cat. no. 137. |
Paintings by William P. Henderson
| Portrait of Woman in Red Coat |
| pastel on paper:11 7/8 x 7 1/2 inches |
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Click Picture to Enlarge
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