Marie Sandoz combines the few known facts about Robert Henri’s years in Cozad, Nebraska—the town founded by his father— with the many known facts what life was like on the Great Plains in the late 19th century.
In 1872 John J. Cozad moved his family from a relatively comfortable life in Cozadville, Ohio to the 40,000 acres on the 100th meridian near the Platte River he bought from the Union Pacific Railroad.
Sandoz’s book is devoted primarily to describing John J. Cozad’s efforts to create a comfortable idyll in the middle of the plains and the many considerable obstacles the land, the climate, and the people presented: rattlesnakes; grasshoppers; droughts; wind, rain, and hail storms; blizzards; searing heat in the summer, brutal cold in the winter; floods; disease; and, perhaps most dangerous of all, lawlessness.
Anyone looking for a biography of Robert Henri should certainly look elsewhere. Many of the incidents in the book are historically accurate, but many are simply educated guesses and it’s difficult to differentiate between fact and fiction. In addition, with the exception of the final chapter of the book, Son of a Gamblin’ Man covers just 10 years of Henri’s life, from age 7 to 17 and there is little attention given to his education as an artist.
On the other hand, anyone looking for a picture of the life of a settler who must contend with the fearsome obstacles confronting him or her in the homestead era of Nebraska will find in this work an excellent companion piece to Old Jules.
The Sheldon Art Museum has Henri’s portraits of his father and mother. I’ve copied them the best I could here, but better representations can be found online at the Sheldon website.
In case you don’t get to the website, this is the excerpt published there from the commentary provided in the catalogue for the exhibition, “Robert Henri and the Eight,” 1971, by Henri scholar William Innes Homer:
“Robert Henri (born Robert Henry Cozad) was one of the great personalities in the history of American art. He was a talented painter, a dedicated teacher, and an influential writer. Most important historically is the role that he played in bringing about profound changes in American art around the tum of the century. Because he believed in the freedom of the individual and progress in art, he fought vigorously against blind obedience to established artistic standards and championed a more liberal attitude which gave free rein to the artist’s creative instincts.”
“Since a great part of Henri’s influence resulted from the strength of his personality, an understanding of the man and his background is essential. Until recently, the facts of his early life were unknown to the public. However, since 1955, this knowledge has come to light and it can now be seen that his formative years played a crucial role in shaping the character of the man who became a central motivating force for artistic progress in this country.”
“Henri’s father, John Jackson Cozad, grew up in Ohio and, as a young man, earned his living as a gambler, an occupation which was at that time considered an honorable profession among gentlemen. In 1857 he married Theresa Gatewood, an attractive young lady from West Virginia (the painting in this exhibition shows her as a mature woman) and took her to Cincinnati to live. There Cozad gave up professional gambling, turned to real estate promotion, and founded a town called Cozaddale near Cincinnati. In Cincinnati his two sons were born: John Cozad in 1862 (John became a medical doctor in Philadelphia; the portrait in the exhibition depicts him in his early forties, after he had changed his name to Frank L. Southrn) and Robert Henry Cozad in 1865. The family remained in Cincinnati for several years and then moved to the great plains of Nebraska, where the father established another town, named Cozad, in Dawson County. The town was inhabited primarily by farmers, and because their farms were occupying choice grazing land, Henri’s father encountered difficulties with the established cattle ranchers who had been there before him. One evening in 1882, a [rancher] attacked the elder Cozad with a knife, and, in self-defense, Cozad drew a pistol and shot him. Fearing for his own life, he fled from the town that he had founded, never to live there again. (Later a coroner’s jury cleared him of the charge.) Several months after this incident, the Cozads were reunited in Denver. To conceal his family’s true identity and to be free of any hint of scandal in the future, John Jackson Cozad changed his name to Richard H. Lee, his son John’s to Frank L. Southrn, and Robert’s to Robert Earl Henri, and passed them off as his adopted children.”
The effects of Henri’s tumultuous early years have been the subject of speculation among various authors. His strong humanist leanings and respect for the individual have been attributed to his early life in the west. More important perhaps is the fact that he overcame those unsettled early years to become a visionary teacher and vanguard artist of the early twentieth century. Robert Henri’s art spirit is alive today in this comprehensive documentation of his illustrious career. We welcome viewers to learn more about Henri and his little known roots in Nebraska.
Read the New York Times review of The Son of a Gamblin’ Man.