Scheherazade

Henry Lyman Sayen painted Scheherazade in 1915, near the end of his short career. Before becoming an artist, Sayen worked as an electrical engineer and helped develop early X-ray technology. He later studied art in Paris, where he learned from Henri Matisse and other painters who used bold color. When Sayen returned to the United States, he brought these new ideas into his own increasingly abstract work. The title refers to Scheherazade, the clever storyteller from One Thousand and One Nights. The painting shows how Sayen joined his scientific curiosity with the new art he had discovered in Europe.