William Penhallow Henderson

William Penhallow Henderson (born in 1877 in Medford, Massachusetts - died in 1943 in Tesuque, New Mexico) was an American painter, architect, and furniture designer.

His father, William Oliver Henderson, was a friend of painter William Edward Norton and an amateur painter himself. During Henderson's childhood, the family moved several times, settling in Turkey Creek, Texas in 1879 and in Clifton, Kansas in 1886. Returning to Boston in 1891, Henderson studied at the Massachusetts Normal Art School and, and in 1899, entered the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, studying under Edmund C. Tarbell. In the following year, he won the Paige Traveling Scholarship for two years of study in Europe. His travels, from 1902-1903, included London, where he became acquainted with the family of John Singer Sargent. He also traveled to Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Madrid, and the Azores.

From 1904 to 1910, Henderson taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago. In 1904 he painted in Mexico and Arizona with colleague Carl N. Werntz. In 1905 he married Alice Corbin, a poet and assistant editor of Poetry Magazine. Their only child, Alice Oliver Henderson, was born in 1907.

Between 1906 and 1907 Henderson completed ten murals for the Joliet Township High School. Mrs. Henderson's book Anderson's Best Fairy Tales, illustrated by her husband, provided the funds for a second trip to Europe from 1910-1911. In 1914, Henderson built a house and studio of his own design at Lake Bluff, Illinois, and in the same year he was commissioned by Frank Lloyd Wright to design murals for Midway Gardens, Chicago. Unfortunately, the murals were painted over shortly after completion. In the following year, he designed the scenery and costumes for the Chicago Fine Arts Theatre production of Alice in Wonderland.

Because his wife Alice Corbin Henderson had tuberculosis, the Hendersons moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1916. In 1918 Henderson was employed by the U.S. Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation in San Francisco to paint camouflage onto the hulls of ships during World War I.

In 1925 Henderson, with his first son-in-law John Evans, formed the Pueblo-Spanish Building Company, through which he designed and built many private homes and some public buildings, including the Railroad Ticket Office in Santa Fe. Henderson was also successful at designing carved wooden furniture. In the mid-1930s, he was appointed to the Federal Arts Project, for which he completed easel paintings and six murals for the Santa Fe Federal Court Building.

In 1937, Henderson designed the Navajo House of Religion, built in the style of a Navajo hogan, in Santa Fe. It is now called the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian.

ource

* [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/findingaids/hendwill.htm William Penhallow Henderson] , based on his biography in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art

References

*Breeskin, Adelyn D: "William Penhallow Henderson, 1877–1943: An Artist of Santa Fe." Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1978.
*Feldman, Sandra K: "William Penhallow Henderson, The Early Years: 1901–1916." New York: Hirschl & Adler Galleries, 1982.
*Phoenix Art Museum: "William Penhallow Henderson: Master Colorist of Santa Fe." Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 1984.

External links

* [http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?ID=2167 William Penhallow Henderson] , in "Have a Question?" from the [http://americanart.si.edu/index3.cfm Smithsonian American Art Museum]
* [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/findingaids/index.cfm/fuseaction/Collections.ViewCollection/CollectionID/9853 William Penhallow Henderson papers at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art]

ee also

*Alice Corbin Henderson, American poet and editor