Photo by Charles Champagne
Randell Henry at the Elizabethan Gallery, where some of his work is currently on view.
A modest man who doesn’t push himself or his work on people, Southern University professor Randell Henry has quietly achieved milestones in the art world. One of the most impressive and recent was his participation in the 60 Americans show at the Elga Wimmer gallery in New York in May 2015. New York Times art critic Roberta Smith reportedly selected Henry’s painting “Rhythm Nation (Homage to Willem de Kooning)” as her favorite in the show. He also has upcoming shows in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and New York.
But his journey began at age 10, when, in the fifth grade, he and a few other students at South Scotlandville Elementary competed in drawing. “We’d stay in the classroom at recess and copy the ‘Draw Me’ characters from magazines,” said Henry during a recent visit at his Southern University office. “I remember drawing a pirate with an eye patch.
“I started taking art seriously in the sixth grade, when I started painting. I finished my schoolwork early and then did watercolor landscapes. A teacher came to the class every week and made pastel drawings—portraits and landscapes. I got a front-row seat, sat up close, and paid a lot of attention. I was fascinated with color and shape and form. That influenced me to make a career in the arts. I knew I wanted to be an artist.”
At Crestworth Middle School, Henry lucked into a teacher who saw promise in his work. “I took classes with a painter, John Byars. I did so many paintings over the year that he’d bring me home with my artwork in his car. One time he brought a big load, and my mother called it ‘all this junk.’ John Byars was angry. He said, ‘This is not junk; this is art.’
“He saw that I was serious and wanted me to have acrylic paint. It cost five dollars for six tubes. Five dollars was a lot of money back then. My mother pressed a five-dollar bill in my hand and said, ‘Don’t ask for any more.’
“I made paintings on cardboard. I’d go to Fraternal Press on Scenic Highway and get corrugated cardboard and leftover paper. They saved it for me.”
Henry said he learned a lot just by looking at art books in the library. “I’d get to school in the morning and go to the 700 section, and look at the French impressionists, Picasso—studying those artists. Later I looked at [Robert] Motherwell, [Jackson] Pollock, Franz Kline. I was drawn to the abstract works. I was fascinated that that was considered important. It was painting for the sake of painting, not trying to make it look like a photograph.
“Mr. Byars was working on a master’s at LSU. He took some of my work to LSU and put it in a one-man show. He wanted to expose my work to the public. He also put it in the teachers’ lounge at school.
“Miss Weatherspoon wanted to buy one of my paintings. I wanted five dollars, but I thought she’d think that was too much so I said four and she bought it. It was an abstract on cardboard with lots of color. Later Miss West wanted a painting. It was twice as big, a lady in a field of flowers; I was influenced by Monet. I wanted ten dollars, but I said eight. She said that was too much, so I said seven. She said that was still too much. I still have that painting stored in my studio on Highland Road.”
At Scotlandville High School, “Roy Norton was a great art teacher. He knew I was serious about art so he kept me focused. I started painting on canvas boards.”
Henry’s father, Harold, realized his son had talent. “He was serious about my work. I did a ceramic self-portrait bust in high school. My father said, ‘You see these in museums!’”
Henry enrolled at Southern, where he earned a B.A. in fine arts, studying under sculptors Al Lavergne and Frank Hayden, painters Jean Paul Hubbard and Van Chambers, and art historian Eloise Johnson. While at Southern, he took a teacher-organized trip to an art-education conference in Houston. When it ended, painting teacher Willie Dean Young and Henry flew to Mexico City (it was Henry’s first flight), where they spent a week at a hotel on the Paseo de la Reforma. “It was exciting; I had never been out of the country,” said Henry, who has since traveled all over the globe. “We went to the Palacio Nacional, the National Theater, the Museum of Anthropology, and a spectacular flower show at the Floating Gardens. We also saw building-sized murals at the university.”
After graduating in 1979, Henry enrolled at LSU, earning a master’s degree in 1982. Painter Robert Warrens assigned a class to make drawings then tear them up and create collages from the pieces. “He saw my work and suggested that I look at collages by Romare Bearden,” said Henry. “I spent a lot of time in the art and architecture library at Southern. That was where I saw the work of black artists like Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Faith Ringgold, and Elizabeth Catlett.
“In 1981, while I was still in graduate school, I wanted to show my work in New Orleans. I went down and spent the weekend going to different galleries. Most were not ready to sign up new artists. I decided to stop at one more, one of the biggest in New Orleans, Nahan Gallery. The man at the desk asked to keep some to show the owner. I left one or two original works plus photos.
“The owner, Kenneth Nahan, called and asked me to come back with more work. I had a one-man show there in 1982. I was the first unknown artist they had shown. I was six months from graduating from LSU. That really got me established as an artist.”
In 1987, he took a job teaching art at Southern for one year. “I spent the next five years developing my style to build up a reputation in Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I first showed at the Old State Capitol, then at the Guild Gallery. I went to shows at the Baton Rouge Gallery and applied for membership when it was still on Fourth Street.” (Henry has been a BRG member since 1985 and was honored with an Appreciation Day at the gallery last July.)
In 1993, department chairman Rebecca Cureau called Henry and offered him a full-time job teaching art at Southern. Since then, Henry has alternated teaching classes with doing his own work in a corner of the large painting studio at Hayden Hall. He has a studio off Scenic Highway, and he still has the studio on Highland Road, primarily to store finished works.
The Southern University Museum of Art is currently exhibiting thirty-two of Henry’s works in a show that will run through the summer. In the meantime, he is busy creating pieces for three upcoming shows.
He will be in a group exhibit at the Stella Jones Gallery in New Orleans, celebrating the gallery’s twenty-year anniversary and featuring artists who have shown there over the years. The exhibit opens in August and runs through September. “I’ll do a work to be paired with a Romare Bearden piece. He was one of my biggest influences as a collage artist.” He will also show work at the 101/EXHIBIT in Los Angeles in September—October and at the Platform exhibit in Manhattan in November.
Despite the acclaim coming his way, Henry is happiest alone in his studio. “I’ve always been fascinated with the way colors and shapes work together.”
