henry rasmussen

September 8th - October 21st, 2022

about the artist…

Henry Rasmussen, born in Copenhagen, Denmark, spent his formative years in Sweden. Upon mastery of an education in graphic design, he began painting and started to develop a respectable body of work. However, the responsibilities of a growing family and a move to California, halfway around the world, forced him to put his art career on the back burner.

Settling in Silicon Valley in the 1970s, Rasmussen was immediately hired as a graphic designer, but soon started his own company, offering design and marketing services to clients nationwide. In 1999, after putting out several books on photography and having served as an art director for a publishing house, he founded Black & White Magazine. Over time, this publication for fine art photographers grew to a circulation of more than 35,000 in 50 countries. In 2005, its sale allowed Rasmussen to return to his first love — painting. A feverish output over the next few years culminated in a solo show at the H.P. Garcia Gallery in New York City in the spring of 2009, and later that same year—at the same gallery—in a group show commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, for which he created five large-scale paintings. 

In 2010, Rasmussen began work on The Beckomberga Mask Series: Victims and Victimizers, which allowed him to express himself through his art in ways that related more strongly to the human condition than his previous work. The paintings in this series have earned him well deserved exposure in the California gallery world, with his work shown in venues ranging from San Francisco to Los Angeles and in between. In 2011, Rasmussen was presented with the Individual Artist Award, Figurative Works, Honorable Mention, by the prestigious Santa Barbara Arts Fund.