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Robert Henry at the Provincetown Art Asso. and Museum

July 20, 2008

Voyeurs I

Voyeur II

The Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM), a venerable but up-to-the-minute institution, hosted a memorable opening Friday night for a retrospective of the work of Robert Henry. Bob, and his wife, artist SelinaTrieff have been mentors and inspirations to a couple of generations of working artists here on the Outer Cape and in New York where they lived during the winters until just a couple of years ago and Bob taught at Brooklyn College, Immensely generous with their time and insights, the couple were both students of Hans Hoffman after WW II and while their painting styles have little apparently in common with each other or with Hoffman, for that matter, both share with him a dedication to the life of art and to passing the light on to future generations.

Be Calmed

Bob's painting has never stayed still for long. He has moved from the abstract to the figurative to the symbolic and back, avoiding pigeon-holing. The PAAM show spans several decades and all of those genres, although it is, really, genreless. My favorites are probably the "Voyeur" series, paintings that show groups of people peering in through the brightly lit windows of a house at an interior that cannot be seen by the viewer. While the subject matter could easily be frightening in a spooky science-fiction kind of way, to me they inspire pathos. The voyeurs are the eternal outsiders drawn to a life they can never have.

Looking and Listening

Many of Henry's paintings have involved water and he has a wonderfully facile way of working the surface of the painting to create the illusions of roiling waves. In "Be Calmed", a boatsman rests deliciously, oblivious of the mayhem breaking around him but, somehow, not touching him. It's a wonderful sentiment: we have it in our individual power to shut the mayhem out.

This show should be seen by anyone near PTown - or anyone who can make it.

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