Henry Farny

born Ribeauvillé, France, 1847; died Cincinnati, Ohio, 1916

BiographyHenry Farny was born in Ribeauvillé, France, and immigrated to the United States with his family as a young child. They lived briefly in western Pennsylvania before settling in Cincinnati in 1859. Farny’s first training came in the form of an apprenticeship to a lithographer and by the age of 18 his work was featured in Harper’s Weekly. He studied in Italy, Germany, and Austria from 1867 to 1870 and then returned to Cincinnati to continue his commercial work. Farny made four major trips west from 1881 to 1894 and developed a strong affinity for the Native cultures of the Great Plains region. By 1890 he left his illustration work behind and, working from his field sketches in his Cincinnati studio, began producing detailed works depicting the Plains Indian way of life before the reservation period. The Plains peoples were the major focus of Farny’s artwork for the next 20 years, becoming the signature work of his career.

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