Alicia M. Henry

Alicia Henry was born to Charles and Katie Henry in Chicago, IL, on Wednesday, May 11, 1966. Alicia passed away on Thursday, October 17, 2024, at her home in Nashville, TN, surrounded by her family and friends after a valiant fight againstmetastatic cancer. She was proceeded in death by her father. She will be lovingly remembered by her surviving family: her mother Katie Henry, her sister and brother Charla and Julian Henry, her niece Gaybrielle Henry, her sister-in-law Gia Gates-Henry and a host of other family and friends. 

Alicia was an American artist and professor of art at Fisk University in Nashville, TN. She grew up in Champaign, IL, where her journey as an artist began. She knew from an early age that she was an artist. She completed high school in Champaign, IL. Her teachers, also recognizing her gift, encouraged her to continue her pursuit of the arts beyond Parkland Community College in Champaign, IL. Alicia would go on to receive her BFA from the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, IL; and later, her MFA from Yale University in NewHaven, CN. She also attended the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in between obtaining her degrees; and in the early 1990s, after graduating from Yale, she spent two years in Provincetown, MA, as a fellow at the prestigious Fine Arts Work Center. Following two years spent in Ghana teaching art with the Peace Corps, Alicia returned to the US and taught art on the Pine Ridge Reservation in Porcupine, SD. In 1997, she took a role as a professor in the Language and Arts Department at Fisk University in Nashville, TN, one of the oldest HBCUs in the US to which she was drawn by its vastcollection of works from the African diaspora. She remained on staff at Fisk for nearly thirty years.

Alicia received numerous awards, fellowships, and grants, including the Joan Mitchel Painter and Sculptor grant (2013), the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship (2000-2001), and the Ford Foundation Fellowship (1989-1991), residencies at the prestigious: Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1990), the Fine Arts Work Centre in Provincetown (1991-1993), Art In General in New York (2000), and the MacDowell Art Colony (1993). Most recently, she was granted the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art award (2016), and the Center of Excellence for the Creative Art Fellowship (2016-2017).

Alicia was loved and admired not only for her talents as an artist, but also for the kind, warm, gentle and friendly spirit that she personified. Her family and network of friends will never be able to fill the void that Alicia’s passing has left. 

Alicia requested that a scholarship be established for Fisk University Art students; so in lieu of flowers, please direct any funds as a contribution to Fisk University’s Alicia Henry Scholarship fund.

Please keep the Henry family in your thoughts and prayers.