Henry Martin, equally talented as an artist and musician, has written more than 150 songs.

by Len Lear

As I wrote once before in the Local, you might say that Henry Martin, 55, is the Rembrandt of Chestnut Hill. When you see his oil paintings of local landmarks like the trees in Pastorius Park and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy, St. Martin's Station, Bredenbeck’s and the Wissahickon covered bridge, you feel that you can reach out and touch them, and the trees and buildings will come to life.

Martin’s work is currently on exhibit — along with the work of other local artists — on the walls of LeBus, a two-year-old restaurant at the corner of Ridge and Midvale Avenues in East Falls. Martin’s local landscape scenes are 90 percent painted plein air, on the spot.

“My style of painting is atmospheric naturalism,” Martin explained in an earlier interview. “I am generally drawn to an elemental expanse of earth and sky. Painting waterfalls is fun. Trees, since their form is designed to move water into their leaves, look like frozen waterfalls flowing upward from the earth.”

Martin, who was also a server/bartender at Tavern on the Hill in 2011 and 2012, has worked for five years with Paintnite, which hosts painting events at area bars and restaurants. And as talented as Martin is as an artist, he is just as talented as a musician and writer of more than 150 songs. He made a terrific album a few years ago, “Blame it on Rock and Roll.” When they can manage their schedules, Henry both paints and records with David Cope, a popular Chestnut Hill singer/songwriter.

“My music tastes are old school. When I actually design a song, it’s much like the way I put a painting together,” said Martin, reflecting on how the two different art forms can contribute to each other … My music is on hold now, though. I have been working exclusively on painting and art. When I spread myself too thin, I accomplish nothing.”

Born in North Carolina, Martin came to Philadelphia in 1986 to attend the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). He enrolled in a program that coordinated with the University of Pennsylvania and earned his bachelor’s in fine arts from Penn in 1994, where he graduated cum laude. After graduation, he lived in Madrid, where he was commissioned to do a painting for the King of Morocco, Hassan II. He returned to the states in 1998 and “set up shop as an artist” in Philly.

Starting on Sept. 22, Martin will be offering a course on “The Artistic Anatomy of Trees” at Morris Arboretum through Oct. 13. At Main Line Art Center he will offer six classes starting the third week in June on such subjects as “Drawing Essentials: Form and Structure.”

Martin also has new work regarding Thomas Eakins' use of imagery arising from Goya's “Black Paintings” in Eakins’ iconic work "The Gross Clinic.” “I lived in Spain for two years,” said Martin, “where I spent most of my free time at The Prado, drawing and sketching from the collection. Goya’s ‘Black Paintings’ are ingrained in my visual memory like grooves in the pavement.

“For this reason, when the ‘Gross Clinic’ made headlines in 2006, I immediately saw numerous references to Goya reading throughout the painting as double images. For example, two figures in the gallery directly above the doctor’s left shoulder blend together into the shape of a skull peering at Dr. Benjamin West, the scribe … This project contains 14 pieces, and I am finished or nearly finished with 12 of them.”

The acclaimed artist also has quite an illustrious family history in the arts. Julia Ward Howe, who wrote the legendary “Battle Hymn of the Republic” right after the outbreak of the Civil War is 1861, is Henry’s great-great-great aunt on his mother’s side. His mother, Marilee Chadeayne, who passed away five years ago, was a brilliant jazz pianist.

And her grandmother, Lauretta Bottomer, was an opera singer in Paris. On the other side, his father, Carroll Martin, was “a painter of no real recognition but great talent,” and his great-uncle is the late Robert Chadeayne, an American regionalist who went to the famed Art Students League with Alexander Calder.

What is the best advice Martin has ever received?

“‘Don’t get discouraged,’ from Arthur DeCosta, a painting teacher at the Pennsylvania Academy, when I was having a bad day in art school.”

Martin resides in Mt. Airy with his wife, Anna Mikhailova, and daughter, Elizabeth, 9 (10 next month).

Len Lear can be contacted at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com