Janet Henry


Janet Henry is a visual artist based in New York City.

Early life and education

Henry was raised in East Harlem and then in Jamaica, Queens, where she currently lives.
Henry attended the School of Visual Arts and the Fashion Institute of Technology. She was a participant in the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited program where she met instructor Betty Blayton Taylor. In 1974, Henry was a recipient of a Rockefeller Fellowship in Museum Education at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Career and Artistic Contributions

Janet Henry's artistic work spans multiple mediums: collage and text-based work, jewelry, and sculpture/installations using multimedia materials. Her work often comments on American culture, including white male patriarchy, by making use of toys, dolls, and miniatures in her art installations. In the 1980s, she was known for creating and photographing necklaces and bracelets that featured sequences of materials.
In partnership with filmmaker Linda Goode Bryant, Henry produced Black Currant, a magazine which highlighted the experimental work of artists who were showcased by Just Above Midtown Gallery. The magazine was later known as B Culture and featured early works of Greg Tate. In the 1970s, Henry also worked in the Education Department at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she collaborated with artist Carrie Mae Weems.
Janet is a funder and educator contributing at the New York State Council on the Arts, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, Lower Eastside Girls Club, and currently works at the Brooklyn Heights Montessori School.

Activism

Janet Henry was vocally opposed to the exhibition The Nigger Drawings by Donald Newman at Artists Space and refused to show her own work in that gallery because of this show title. The exhibition was widely protested for the racism of this exhibition name by artists including Carl Andre, Howardena Pindell, May Stevens, and Lucy Lippard who saw this incident as a key indicator of the systemic racism within the art world. Henry was also outspoken about the implicit racism of Women's Action Committee.

Exhibitions

Henry's artwork has been exhibited in various shows and venues such as PPOW Gallery, the New Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Newark Museum, Artists Space, and Just Above Midtown.

Solo exhibitions and installations