Henri Hayden was a School of Paris painter, mainly of still life and landscape.
Hayden was born in Warsaw and studied engineering at Warsaw Polytechnic from 1902. Alongside this he studied painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and, in 1905, decided to devote himself entirely to painting.
Hayden moved to Paris in 1907, then a hotbed for the European artists of his generation, and briefly studied at the art school La Palette. He travelled to Brittany most summers from 1909-18 to paint in its unique light, including Le Pouldu and Pont Aven. His first solo exhibition was at the Galerie Druet, Paris, in 1911. He was influenced by Cézanne, whose groundbreaking retrospective had been shown in the city the same year Hayden had arrived, and decided to join the Cubist movement (1915-21) where he became friends with the small circle including Braque, Gris, Lipchitz and Picasso. In 1916 the exclusive Cubist dealer, Leonce Rosenberg, brought Hayden under contract.
Becoming tired with the movement in 1922, Hayden reacted against Cubism and returned to the direct study of nature. He continued to exhibit in France, including a number of solo shows. During the German Occupation, Hayden took refuge in the South of France and, on returning to Paris in 1944, found his studio and much of his work destroyed by the Nazis.
Hayden bought a country house in 1962, near La Ferté-sous-Jouarre, and immersed himself in area, using its landscape views and places as the subjects for his paintings. For many years, Hayden was represented in London by Waddington Galleries. His works are in the collections of Musee d'Art Moderne, Paris; Petit Palais, Paris; Stockholm Museum; Budapest Musem; Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.
