Jesse Anthony Henry (Asubuhi) was born on December 4 in New York City at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, the same year that jazz legend Charlie “Bird” Parker passed away. Drawing and playing music since 1958, Henry developed an early creative life rooted in both visual art and sound. When his family moved from Harlem to Mount Vernon, New York, in 1964, he explored nature through photography and drawing, deepening his interest in the relationship between music and visual expression. His studies of clarinet and guitar in public school, participation in jazz ensembles, and workshops at the East in Brooklyn, a community arts and education center focused on Black nationalism, shaped his artistic direction. In 1969, after attending Black Panther Party meetings in Harlem and Mount Vernon, he began producing political cartoons as a form of activism.

Henry earned a B.F.A. from Howard University in 1981, studying with Lois Mailou Jones, Skunder Boghossian, Ed Love, Alfred J. Smith Jr., and members of AfriCOBRA, including Jeff Donaldson and Wadsworth Jarrell. He later received a master’s degree from the College of New Rochelle in 1989.

Henry taught art in the Mount Vernon Public School system from 1984 to 2021, becoming the first African American male to teach art in that district. A musician, muralist, and cultural organizer, he founded S.P.A.C.E. (Serious Practitioners of African-American Cultural Experiences) and continues to exhibit nationally and internationally.

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