Charles Henry

Born in 1859 in Bollwiller, in Haut-Rhin, he was educated in Paris and went on to work at the Sorbonne, first as an assistant and later as a librarian. He developed a reputation as a specialist in the history of mathematics, and was even sent to Italy to look for manuscripts the French government wanted published.

His interests ranged far beyond library work. He edited collections of letters and scholarly texts, wrote on music theory, and published books and articles on aesthetics, color, and psychophysics. His ideas about line, color, and emotional response were noted by artists and critics in the circle around Félix Fénéon, Georges Seurat, and Paul Signac, and they became part of the broader conversation around Neo-Impressionism.

That mix of scholarship and experimentation makes his career especially memorable: he was at once a man of archives, a writer on scientific aesthetics, and an inventive mind with an interest in laboratory instruments and other practical devices. He died in 1926.