Henry Church

Henry Church (1836-1908) was an Ohio blacksmith, musician, woodsman, self-taught painter, and sculptor.

Born in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, a new settlement on the Western Reserve, the artist acquired attitudes as a boy that were to inform his adult work. Judged too sickly to attend school, he roamed the woods, developing a sense of autonomy, a love of nature, and respect for Native American traditions.

Apprenticed at thirteen in his father’s blacksmith shop, the young man learned his trade well, but the work did not satisfy his intellectual or artistic yearnings. Among the ideas he explored was spiritualism, which holds that the spirits of the dead are accessible to the living. Through painting and sculpture, Church gave his philosophical notions material form.

On a massive block of sandstone jutting into a river, he carved a Native American woman surrounded by symbols of the American state and Iroquois artifacts. Beneath her is a skeleton. He called the work Rape of the Indians by the White Man (1885) and preached to the spirits of the Indians from a pulpit on the riverbank. Living in harmony with nature and at peace with one’s neighbours are other themes that recur in Church’s work. Intended as a monument for the village square but rejected by the town fathers,

Animals are also featured in many of Church’s paintings. Best known is The Monkey Picture (c.1885-1890), a spoof of a still-life painting in which two monkeys escape their cage and run amok on a staid Victorian dining table as a policeman, bent on corralling them, appears in the doorway.

Church taught himself to paint by reading manuals, copying works of established artists, and experimenting with a variety of media. He showed considerable resourcefulness, if little success, in attempting to generate income as an artist, and he continued to do so until his death. Church achieved only local renown during his lifetime.