Collection: Henry Lyman Sayen

Henry Lyman Sayen was born in Philadelphia on 25 April 1875 and died there on 27 April 1918. Trained as an engineer, he designed x-ray tubes before turning to painting. His early exposure to scientific precision informed his later abstract compositions, which emerged in the artistic circles of Paris and Philadelphia during the first decade of the 20th century.

Sayen’s paintings from 1910 onward explored geometric abstraction, often using oil on canvas to build layered, rhythmic forms. His portrait Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (autumn 1910) applies fractured planes to the human figure, while Bathers by a River (1909–10, 1913, and 1916–17) extends these experiments into a large-scale composition of interlocking shapes and muted earth tones. His work bridges the analytical rigor of engineering with the spatial innovations of early modernism.

Sayen exhibited in Paris alongside the Section d’Or group in 1912, positioning his abstraction within the broader Cubist dialogue. His premature death in 1918 cut short a trajectory that might have further shaped the development of geometric abstraction in the United States and Europe.