In the spring of 1957, Kentucky native Henry Faulkner emerged onto the New York gallery scene with his first sale to The Collectors of American Art co-op. From that moment forward, his career began a meteoric rise to fame.
Faulkner was deeply rooted in the classics and self-educated. Truly artistic, partly mystic, and by any measure a marketing genius, he synthesized painting, poetry and the performing arts. He could turn a phrase into a song and glean transcendent colors that expressed the music of his very being from a palette of paint. Faulkner’s artwork creatively incorporated mid-century European art styles with a primitive flourish. He produced art shows and filled patron requests throughout the United States and Italy, and during his prolific career he created an estimated 5000 works of art.
Henry’s gifts were apparent to everyone in the room, while his shortcomings and idiosyncrasies glared back at the community at large. His flamboyant charm was often his way of expressing a childlike joy with insights into the humor and pathos of love and loneliness. Faulkner often showered his love upon a menagerie of animals that he expanded throughout his 33-year professional career, including his most famous companion Alice, his nanny goat.
Henry Lawrence Faulkner lived his own legend while creating it and became larger than life after his unexpected death. He bequeathed us his imagination through his art and the stories of his impact on all those who encountered him. Through both his art and his vibrant lifestyle, Henry left the world his greatest gift – the gift of color.
We are proud to be a broker of Faulkner’s original paintings and sketches as well as the exclusive giclée printmaking house of all his works per the Henry Faulkner Estate. As one of Henry’s many friends in the art world, John Stephen Hockensmith and Fine Art Editions, together with sponsor First Southern National Bank of Lexington, also proudly presents The Gift of Color, the definitive collector’s anthology of Henry’s life stories, poems, sketches, and paintings.
