About Patrick Henry Bruce

  • Biography

    The following was written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California.

    Patrick Henry Bruce was the great-great-great grandson of the patriot Patrick Henry and was one of the most mysterious figures in American 20th century art and one of the first American abstract painters.

    He was born in Long Island, Virginia in 1881, the son of Virginia gentlefolk. He came to New York in 1901 to study with William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. Like so many of his peers he went to Paris, but unlike most of them, he remained in France. His early work, many of them portraits, reflected the influence of his American teachers, especially Henri. But by 1907, he was beg...

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