We haven’t located much reliable information about this artist. He exhibited at the Brooklyn Artists Gallery (1932). 38 works at National Gallery of Art as part of Index of American Design. 6 images at FAP.
A soothing rural landscape fades into the hazy distance. Its design is mostly symmetrical, save for a red barn and fence at left center; humans and livestock are conspicuous in their absence. Perhaps the painting's most remarkable feature is its almost kaleidoscopic foreground, bright and particular with color. It may be that Henning's extensive work on toleware for the Index of American Design influenced his palette of colors here.
At the time of this painting, marine art in its modern form was less than a hundred years old. Henning shows the influence of Gustave Courbet's "landscapes of the sea" and of subsequent artists like Claude Monet, albeit in more representational form. A wave arriving at shore is secondary to the power of several elements in the painting--sky, cloud, ocean, wave, foam, and rock--each with its own distinctive style, each complicated by variations of light.
