Robert Henri

In the autumn of 1902 (the year he painted Snow in New York) Henri accepted a teaching post at the New York School of Art, where his later students included Rockwell Kent, George Bellows and Edward Hopper (pictured). “Henri,” Hopper recalled, “made the deepest impression on me… He was a wonderful teacher.” But Henri soon clashed with the school’s founder and chief instructor, William Merritt Chase, who favoured a refined, detailed variety of Impressionism, whereas Henri had largely broken with Impressionism after discovering the works of Frans Hals and Manet during his 1895 visit to Europe. Henri was a kind, warm-hearted and passionate man who often lent money to students in need, and his popularity quickly surpassed that of Chase, who resigned in 1907 and entrusted Henri with running the institution.

From the page of Snow in New York