Art of the American West. Henry Farney. A-Z Challenge

              Obsidian Mountain in the Yellowstone. 1897  Henry Farny. (1847-1916)

Wikipedia.  Henry Farny

Henry Francis Farny was born in Alsace, France, the son of a political refugee who emigrated to Pennsylvania when Henry was six years old.  His interest in Native Americans began in childhood because a band of friendly Senecas Indians lived nearby.

In 1859, Henry's family moved to Cincinnati and he began his first job as an apprentice lithographer.  He worked at Harpers' Weekly but realized he needed more art training so he traveled to Germany to study at the Royal Academy in Dusseldorf where he remained for three years.

After returning to Cincinnati, he worked as an illustrator for various magazines, but his interest in Indians never wavered and he began traveling in the West researching and painting scenes of the Plains Indians including portraits of Sitting Bull, Geronimo, other Apaches who were being held by the American Government.  He also illustrated articles by the famed anthropologist, Frank Cushing. (see previous post).

His work, according to the article "Taos and Santa Fe Painters," is in the romantic, realist style, but not overly idealized.  His light is strong, poses candid, and his goal was to preserve the details of a way of life he saw disappearing before his eyes.'"