Henry Taylor (1958) is an American artist and painter who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his acrylic paintings, mixed media sculptures, and installations.
Henry Taylor was born the youngest of eight brothers and sisters, which earned him the childhood nickname "Henry VIII" (which he still occasionally calls himself) in Ventura, California, to a father who was employed by the U.S. government as a commercial painter and is listed as a painter on Henry's birth certificate. Raised in Oxnard, California, Henry took art classes at Oxnard College under James Jarvaise, who became an ongoing mentor. His brother, Randy, was a founding member of the Ventura County chapter of the Black Panthers.
After 10 years of working as a psychiatric technician at Camarillo State Mental Hospital, Taylor retired in 1997. He attended the California Institute of the Arts, where in 1995, he obtained his Bachelor's of Fine Art.
Taylor's largest output of work is in portraiture: he is known to paint obsessively, on various materials, including empty cigarette packs, detergent boxes, cereal boxes, suitcases, crates, bottles, furniture, and stretched canvas. His subjects include family, friends, patients (when employed at the hospital), acquaintances, strangers, waitresses, celebrities, homeless people, himself, historical figures, cultural figures, sports heroes, politicians, and individuals from photographs or other art works. At times, Taylor collapses time periods and spaces, as in Cicely and Miles Visit the Obamas: in this work, Cicely Tyson and Miles Davis—painted after a famous photograph of the couple from 1968—are seen in front of the White House, alluding to their imaginary visit to the Obamas.
Taylor's painterly style has been variously described as sensuous, vibrant, bold, fast and loose, full of empathy, generosity, and love, and the visual equivalent to blues music, while retaining a profound critical social sensibility. His work has been lauded for maintaining an impossible balance between careful and sophisticated art-world references with a seemingly spontaneous and natural expressiveness.
One of Taylor's more recent works, The Times Ain't A Changing, Fast Enough! captures the events of the shooting of Philando Castile, who was shot and killed in his own car with his girlfriend and 4-year-old.
Taylor showed work that delved into the old practice of the Master's Golf Tournament using Black only caddies in a show titled: "Disappeared, but A Tiger Showed Up, Later" at Hauser & Wirth, Southampton.
Taylor's important exhibitions include a mid-career retrospective at MoMA PS1, along with solo exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem, Artpace, and the Santa Monica Museum of Art, along with group exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Hammer Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Rubell Museum, and the Bruce High Quality Foundation.
He was awarded the Robert De Niro, Sr. Prize for his achievements in painting.
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| Henry Taylor |
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| Untitled (Self Portrait with Cane), 2019 |
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| Wegrett, 2006 |
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| Huey Newton, 2007 |
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| Cornbread, 2008 |
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| She Mixed, 2008 |
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| Resting, 2011 |
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| The dress, ain't me, 2011 |
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| Another Wrong, 2013 |
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| Everyone's Momma, 2013 |
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| Mary had a little…(that ain't no lamb), 2013 |
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| Not Alone, 2013 |
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| That Was Then, 2013 |
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| i'm yours, 2015 |
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| Oscar Murillo's family, 2015 |
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| The Darker the Berry, The Sweeter the Juice, 2015 |
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| Cora's, 2016 |
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| Hammons meets a hyena on holiday, 2016 |
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| Andrea Motley Crabtree, 2017 |
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| Cicely and Miles Visit the Obamas, 2017 |
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Tthe floaters,’ High Line, New York NY, 2017
Installation view |
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| The times thay aint a changing fast enough! 2017 |
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| Portrait of George Acogny, 2018-19 |
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| Untitled, 2019 |
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Man, I’m so full of doubt, but I must Hustle Forward,
as my daughter Jade would say, 2020 |
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| Untitled, 2020 |
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| Untitled, 2021 |
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| Untitled, 2022 |
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| Untitled, 2022 |
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