Welcome to the tenth edition of Haines Gallery's  Artist Digest.

Once a week, we focus our attention on the work of a single artist, bringing you a carefully curated mix of content that invites you to explore their practice in depth.

Today's Digest spotlights Mike Henderson, whose work as an artist, filmmaker, musician, and educator has shaped generations of young artists.
About the Artist
Photo: Robert Divers Herrick
Mike Henderson is a pioneering African American artist, filmmaker, and musician whose practices span over fifty years—from his break­through protest paintings of the 1960s to the abstract works he is best known for today. Born and raised in segregated Marshall, Missouri, Henderson moved to the Bay Area in 1965 to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, thriving among the creative community he found there. After completing his BFA and MFA degrees, he went on to join the faculty at University of California, Davis, where he inspired students for over 40 years. An accomplished blues guitarist and filmmaker, Henderson’s experimental short films have been screened at venues such as the New York Film Festival and Centre Georges Pompidou. Henderson has received a Guggenheim Fellowship (1973), two National Endowment for the Arts Grants (1978, 1989), and the Artadia Award (2019). His work has been exhibited at institutions that include the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; de Young Museum, San Francisco; and the School of the Art Institute of Chi­cago. He was the subject of a recent solo exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute (2019) and was included in Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983 at the de Young Museum (2019-2020). Mike Henderson, Before the Fire, 1965-1985 , a major survey exhibition curated by Dan Nadel, is scheduled to open at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis in 2022.

Conversations
"In the Studio with Mike Henderson"

Artist Christopher Williams talks with Henderson in his San Leandro studio: "If I can be better at anything I do—being a parent, husband, painter, or human being—that's what I'm focused on. How it all fits together, that's for historians."
"It Doesn't Come Overnight"

Qianjin Montoya interviews Mike Henderson for SFMOMA's Open Space: " I said to myself, “Okay, Mike, now it’s time to make social awareness a part of breathing in and breathing out.”

Portfolio
Mike Henderson
Me and the Band , c. 1968
Oil on canvas
53 x 96 inches
HG14863
Mike Henderson
As It Is Now , 2017
Oil on canvas
72 x 87 inches
HG13975
Mike Henderson
Parallel Portions , 2017
Oil on canvas
72 x 87 inches
HG13976
Mike Henderson
Birth of the Spirit , 2013
Oil on canvas
46 x 36 inches
HG12348
Mike Henderson
Nomad , 2018
Oil on wood panel
24 x 18 inches
HG15146
Mike Henderson
Remember Me , 1999
Oil on canvas
54 x 22 inches
HG12494
Mike Henderson
Ore , 1991
Oil on canvas
72 x 60 inches
HG14999
Critic's Corner
"Mike Henderson Does It All "
by Jonathan Curiel

"Few other people have Henderson’s facility to excel in so many artistic directions — and to have stayed at that level for decades."

Artist's Picks
Music
"These are things I listen to when I'm painting: Miles Davis' In a Silent Way and Kind of Blue . Bob James' Espresso . Ma Rainey. Bessie Smith. Lonnie Johnson. Sunnyland Slim. Jascha Heifetz. And occasionally, Garbage and Juvenile. Practicing guitar and listening to the practice. Lectures on tape from The Great Courses series, like Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories & Tragedies. Ruth Draper and her Company of Characters."

Activities
"During this time I've been touching base with people, trying not to overdo it all at once, and going into the studio. I'm working on four large paintings and five small ones, all oil on canvas, based on extrapolation. Oil paint dries so slowly that it allows me to work on more than one paining at a time. I'm in the studio seven days a week. This is my routine, virus or no virus."
From the Vault
Watch Mike Henderson and William T. Wiley's 1983 performance at San Francisco's Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
"Art is more than just making an image on a canvas ... it’s also an obligation to say something about the human condition. Each generation is obligated to address these great questions we’re confronted with."
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