Portrait of Catherine O'Malley 1924

Robert Henri made this portrait of Catherine O'Malley with oil on canvas, working with confident daubs of paint. You can see that this wasn't a painter interested in detail so much as essence, the feeling of a person. I love the way he fearlessly slaps on the color: the vibrant orange of her top against the cool blues in the background makes her skin practically glow. Henri’s brushwork is so loose. You can almost feel the energy of his hand moving across the canvas. I bet he stepped back a lot, squinting, trying to capture that fleeting expression, you know? He may have been thinking about how to not only capture her likeness but also her spirit. Looking at this portrait, I'm reminded that painting is a conversation across time. Artists like Henri build on what came before, responding to and riffing on the ideas of their predecessors. It is all an embodied expression, and there's always room for new interpretations.