Henry Casselli

Henry Calvin Casselli Jr. (born October 25, 1946) is a contemporary American artist from New Orleans, Louisiana. He primarily paints watercolors of figures and settings from his native New Orleans.

Life and career Henry Casselli was born and raised in the ethnically diverse Ninth Ward of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Casselli received a scholarship to study at the McCrady School of Fine and Applied Arts in the French Quarter of New Orleans, where he enrolled in 1964 after graduating from high school. He was tutored by John McCrady, and joined the faculty as an assistant instructor during his second year at the school.

In 1967, as the American involvement in the war in Vietnam escalated, Casselli voluntarily enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. He was assigned the position of combat artist, and upon his deployment found himself immersed in the Tet Offensive of 1968. As Casselli later recalled, "ithin three days of my arrival, I was knee-deep in war. I had to be a Marine first just to survive." Despite the hardship of war, Casselli was able to depict soldiers and scenes of war in pencil sketches and paintings during his combat tour, artwork that is now part of the collection of the National Museum of the Marine Corps, in Washington, DC. Casselli photographs Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office in 1988 in preparation for his portrait. After being discharged from the Marine Corps in 1970, Casselli returned to New Orleans to learn that his mentor, John McCrady, was very ill. McCrady died within days of Casselli's return. Losing his mentor was a very difficult experience for Casselli, but it also signaled his coming of age as an artist. His 1981 portrait of Muhammad Ali (called Cat's Cradle) also hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.

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