Henry Francois Farny (1847 – 1916)

Henry Farny was born in Alsace, France. His parents fled to America, as political refugees, after the Napoleonic party came to power. They settled in Pennsylvania at the headwaters of the Allegheny River. Their home was near a Seneca Indian camp,and Farny's early encounters with the Seneca led to a lifelong interest in the Indian. The family moved to Cincinnati, where Henry found work as an apprentice lithographer.

By the age of eighteen, he had work published in "Harper's Weekly". The following year Farny went to Europe for three and a half years of study in Rome, Dusseldorf and Vienna. Returning to America, he worked as a book illustrator, revolutionizing the schoolbook industry when he salvaged the declining McGuffey Reader series with his illustrations.

Farny made numerous trips to the West, including in 1878 a thousand-mile canoe trip down the Missouri River and in 1893, a journey to Montana to attend cermonies marking completion of the Northern Pacific transcontinental railroad.

He was adopted by a tribe of Sioux Indians and named "Long Boots". Unlike the work of many early western artists, Henry Farny's paintings met with almost instant acclaim and quick sale. His repeated trips to Indian encampments resulted in the storytelling type of art that was so typical of the times.

Farny's miniature-like technique was void of the sensationalism which generally was the tool of the less accomplished artists of the day. Paintings by Henry Farny are "blue chip" in the art market; they have appreciated more in value per square inch than those of any other artist. Farny was a noted gourmet cook and after-dinner speaker. He could also speak French, German, Italian and Indian.