Henry Taylor Ventura, California, b. 1958

Born in 1958, Henry Taylor lives and works in Los Angeles.
He studied art with James Jarvaise at Oxnard College, where he encountered the work of Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston, and Jean Dubuffet. While working as a nurse at Camarillo State Mental Hospital, he returned to school and completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1995 at the California Institute of the Arts.

His enigmatic works include portraits of psychiatric patients, historical figures, friends, and references to popular culture. The artist claims that he paints everyone—or at least tries to. His colorful, expressive paintings are characterized by emotional intimacy and gestural freedom, following the tradition of American artists such as Alice Neel and Jacob Lawrence.

Taylor has had solo exhibitions at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, MoMA PS1 in Queens, and The Studio Museum in Harlem, and in 2017 he was included in the Whitney Biennial.

His works are held in collections including the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, among others.