Henry Taylor (Bilingual Edition)

Catalogue of the Henry Taylor exhibition, presented at the Musée national Picasso-Paris (8 April – 6 September 2026).

Henry Taylor, born in 1958, is one of the leading figures in contemporary American painting. He lives and works in Los Angeles, where he has developed an expressive and socially engaged body of work. His artistic career began late in the 1990s whilst he was working as a psychiatric nurse in a hospital. There, he developed empathy and a keen sense of observation through the portraits he created of patients.

Henry Taylor focuses primarily on depicting members of the Black community, whilst broadening his perspective to include those around him, sporting heroes and iconic figures from popular culture. In his works, he highlights the individual and social forces that shape each of his subjects, thereby exploring urban and racial struggles and the political issues that underpin them.

The exhibition catalogue comprises an introductory text on the artist’s career by the curator, Joanne Snrech; an interview between Cécile Debray and Henry Taylor; an art-historical essay on the representation of US history in the artist’s work by Elvan Zabunyan; a reprint of a text by Laura Hoptman originally published in 2012 for MoMA; and a chronology by François Dareau.

The contributors explore his empathetic perspective on social and racial struggles, whilst analysing his engagement with Picasso’s work and American history.