Biographical Information

Henry Koehler
1927 American

Henry Koehler is an American artist, born in 1927 in Louisville, Kentucky, who is an Anglophile and a keen equine sportsman. His family came from Alsace-Lorraine, France, and emigrated to the US during the 19th century. His mother was musical and passed on this love to her son. While he received no formal art training, his early aptitude for draughtsmanship flourished naturally. He graduated from Yale in 1950 and started work as a graphic artist including illustrations published by "The New Yorker", "Town and Country", and "Sports Illustrated".

He was introduced to riding in 1950 and since then has been a committed horseman. His summers were spent sailing in American or Mediterranean waters and between 1956 and 1959 he travelled in Europe and Asia, documenting the activities of the US Air Force. Henry Hoehler is a keen race-goer and enjoys visiting England's National Hunt and flat-racing courses. He prefers the British and Continental styles of racing, where the sense of occasion, the setting and the atmosphere prove far more alluring to him than the more impersonal American venues.

Koehler and his interior designer wife Audrey live in a beautiful house in Southampton, USA, which benefits from his artistic talent and her professional expertise! He has an unusually passionate regard for artichokes and this is expressed in designs on prints, cufflinks, slippers and models made of wood, ceramic, ivory, gold and silver. He has painted all aspects of this thistle-allied plant and once stated: "Sometimes I wish I could paint nothing else - because the subject is both challenging and relaxing."
He has painted several commission portraits of well-known thoroughbreds but prefers genre pieces depicting horse-racing, polo games, and hunting in the field with horses. He has become noted for his sensitive studies of jockey figures before and after their race. His work is known not only for its accuracy and atmospheric qualities, but also for the intimate rendering of related objects such as a jockey's silks, and a hunter's boots, whip and saddle. His subjects range from jockeys and racing to polo, fox hunting and fishing, dogs and other animals, and garden and still life scenes.

Koehler now ranks as one of the foremost exponents of contemporary art and, as such, is internationally renowned. He has held many one-man exhibitions since 1961 at venues including London, Paris, Florida and South Carolina. His work is to be found in the collections of Ralph Lauren, Lord Hanson, Nina Campbell, Mark Birley, HRH The Prince of Wales, and the late Duke and Duchess of Windsor. In 1974 he was commissioned to design the 10 cent US postage stamp commemorating the 100th Kentucky Derby. Champions he has painted include Riva Ridge, Secretariat, Key to the Mint, and Stage Door Johnnie. His works are in the collections of the National Racing Museum in Saratoga and the National Horse Racing Museum in Newmarket.