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Robert Henry Cozad grew up in Nebraska. Life was harsh: brutal weather, grasshoppers, Sioux and Pawnee, cowboys and cattle barons. His father (John J. Cozad) owned and farmed a large tract of land, but the family was forced to flee to New York and then to Atlantic City after the father shot and killed a cattleman after a fist fight.

To protect his father, Robert changed his last name to "Henri" (Hen-rye). At age 21 he enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy. His instructor was Thomas Anshutz, a student of Thomas Eakins. Henri also became an admirer of Eakins. He left the academy in 1888, though, to study in Paris and to examine the works of Edouard Manet. Henri returned to the U.S. in 1891. He had developed a style which included broadly painted figures outlined by dramatic lighting and intense shading. This style was used to depict what concerned him most: scenes of everyday American life.

Henri opened a studio at 806 Walnut Street in the heart of downtown Philadelphia. There he accumulated a group of students which included William Glackens, George Luks, John Sloan and Everett Shinn.

Every Tuesday evening the group gathered to listen to Henri, a born teacher. He was known as the "Old Man" at age 19. Henri gave carefully formulated observations about style, craft and subject matter. He proposed that anything could be the subject for a painting.

"The tramp sits on the edge of the curb. He is all huddled up. His body is thick. His underlip hangs. His eyes look fierce. I feel the coarseness of his clothes against his bare legs. He is not beautiful - but he could well be the motive for a great and beautiful work of art. The subject can be as it may, beautiful or ugly. The beauty of a work of art is in the work itself."

On many nights, beer steins were passed around, followed by poker games or indoor scrimmages with plates for footballs and pots of spaghetti for goals. These matches usually turned into spaghetti fights, and the walls were decorated by dried strands of spaghetti for years to come.

The group also organized theatrical presentations written and staged by the artists. (Twillbe was a take-off of Trilby by English artist and author George du Maurier. The play featured Shinn as expatriate artist James McNails Whiskers.)

Ash Can artists looked to "the naturalism of Manet, the scientific objectivity of Eakins and the severely honest craftsmanship of Homer." They "took what they could from the Old Masters, especially Hals, Velazquez, Goya and Courbet." They discussed Wagner, Whitman and Emerson with Manet, Daumier, Eakins and Courbet. Henri was the first teacher to "mention Eakins' rugged individualism and Ryder's romanticisom as being distinctly American."

Henri taught portraiture, composition and drawing from the antique at the School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art) in Philadelphia. He was "tall and sophisicated"; 77 women signed up for the first class. He married a red-headed student (Linda Craige) in 1898. They moved to Paris where four of his paintings were accepted for the Salon of 1899. One (La Neige) was purchased by the Musee du Luxembourg. They returned to Manhattan where Linda died in 1905.

He was an outstanding painter of children.

"A child lives in a world he has made, and in it there is no tying down to literal facts. Paint with respect for him...The child lives in his world. It is nothing to you, but it is just as big as yours."

Henri was the teacher of the group.  Teachers are helpful: Helpful Henri.