Biography from AskART:
| Jesse Henderson is a western painter who paints Indian themes to encourage interest and to educate. His images of the Lewis and Clark expedition were adopted by the US Postal Service, museums and corporations to commemorate the expeditions 2004 bicentennial.
Henderson was raised on a ranch on the Rocky Boy's Chippewa-Cree reservation in Montana. "I paint what I know," says Henderson, who's now 40 years old. "From growing up on the ranch, I know horses and I know my culture. That's what you see in my work." Henderson had talent as early as the third grade, but passed on a scholarship to the Institute of American Indian Art in Santa Fe, NM, after high school to join the Army. "I was trying to find myself," he reasons.
Henderson's introduction into the art world opened up before him almost accidentally. In 1994, his wife asked him if he'd make some paintings for the couple to give as Christmas gifts. The reception to the work was very positive and two years later Henderson began painting full time. Henderson has devoted himself to capturing the past and the culture of his people as well as studying the minutiae of other tribes pasts. In his zeal for accuracy, Henderson hasn't sacrificed artistry to dogmatism. There's quiet, plaintive beauty in what he paints, in the loneliness of the country, the fragility and resilience of the figures.
Today, Henderson and his wife remain in Missoula, where he paints almost every day.
Credit: Gretchen Reynolds, Southwest Art Magazine, August 2005 |
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