Description: Henry Hensche - Outdoor Portrait Painting

Media: Oil on stretched canvas.

Title: Untitled

Date: c.1940s

Measurements: 23.75″ x 19.75″ sight size, and 29.75″ x 25.75″ x 2.5″  overall including framing.

Condition: Good original condition overall. Small repair in lower center not visible from the front. (small canvas patch verso). (see images). Vintage frame shows wear and distress.

Notes: Bold and brightly colored male portrait.

Provenance: From a San Rafael, CA estate.

About the artist: Henry Hensche (1899-1992) was German born American artist who was greatly influenced American artist, Charles W. Hawthorne.  Hensche began his art studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied old masters and their techniques and was exposed to the work of French Impressionists. Hensche went on to study at the Art Students League in New York City, taking classes with George Bellows, among others, and National School of Design in New York before moving to Provincetown in 1919 and began his studies with Hawthorne at the Cape Cod School of Arts.  By 1935 Hensche himself was teaching at Cape School of Art in Provincetown, Mass, taking over for Hawthorne and continuing to teach his students in the tradition of Hawthorne, focusing on color relationships and painting in color blocks outdoors in the brilliant sunlight. Hensche’s work is realistic in nature but more concerned with color and shape than subject matter.