Henry Taylor

Henry Taylor’s imprint on the American cultural landscape comes from his disruption of tradition. While people figure prominently in Taylor’s work, he rejects the label of portraitist. Taylor’s chosen subjects are only one piece of the larger cultural narrative that they represent: his paintings reveal the forces at play, both individualistic and societal, that come to bear on his subject. The end result is not a mere idealized image, but a complete narrative of a person and his history. Taylor explains this pursuit of representational truth: ‘It’s about respect, because I respect these people. It’s a two-dimensional surface, but they are really three-dimensional beings.’

Work

Exhibitions

2023

• Whitney Museum of American Art, 'Henry Taylor: B Side', New York NY (Travelling Exhibition)
• Fabric Workshop and Museum, ‘Henry Taylor: Nothing Change, Nothing Strange’, Philadelphia PA

2022

• Museum of Contemporary Art, ‘Henry Taylor: B Side’, Los Angeles CA (Travelling Exhibition)

2021

• Hauser & Wirth, ‘Disappeared, but a tiger showed up, later’, Southampton NY
• Hauser & Wirth, ‘Henry Taylor’, Somerset, UK

2019

• Blum & Poe, ‘NIECE COUSIN KIN LOOK HOW LONG IT'S BEEN’, New York NY

2018

• Blum & Poe, ‘Here and There’, Tokyo, Japan

2017

• Galerie Eva Presenhuber, ‘A Portrait Show’, Zurich, Switzerland
• The High Line, ‘the floaters’, New York NY

2016

• Blum & Poe, ‘Henry Taylor With a New Film by Kahlil Joseph’, Los Angeles CA
• Henry Taylor’s, ‘Henry Taylor. Camarillo State Hospital’, Los Angeles CA
• The Mistake Room, ‘This Side, That Side’, Guadalajara, Mexico

2015

• Carlos/Ishikawa, ‘Henry Taylor’, London, UK
• Artpace, ‘They shot my dad, they shot my dad!’, San Antonio TX
• Blum & Poe, ‘Henry Taylor’, New York NY
• UNTITLED, ‘Henry Taylor’, New York NY

See more

Videos

Henry Taylor makes paintings that confront the increasingly visible racial tensions between law enforcement and the communities they serve. In this studio visit, he discusses his process and the source imagery for his paintings.

Learn More

Henry Taylor - Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by Partner and President Marc Payot

Hauser & Wirth

Zadie Smith on Henry Taylor’s Promiscuous Painting

The California artist’s subjects are drawn from wildly divergent walks of life—the famous and the down-and-out, the sane and the mad, the rich and the poor.

The New YorkerCondé Nast

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