Sharpe, Henry Dexter (1872 - 1954)
Role: Chancellor, TrusteeDates: 1932 - 1952, 1904 - 1952
Portrait Location: Sharpe Refectory CDR
Artist: Laurens, Jean Pierre (1875-1933)
Portrait Date: 1925
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 35 1/2
Framed Dimensions: 41 3/4
Brown Portrait Number: 174
Brown Historical Property Number: 2208
Born in Rhode Island, Henry Dexter Sharpe graduated from Brown in 1894, the first year the graduating class included women. He immediately joined his father's Providence-based machine tools firm, Brown and Sharpe Manufacturing, becoming president within five years. He was named a trustee of Brown only ten years after graduating. Sharpe continued to serve on the Brown Corporation in a number of roles over the next fifty years, including twenty years as chancellor. He dedicated his efforts to bolstering the institution's financial resources, and became himself the principal benefactor of the university, donating fellowships and generously supporting the 1940s Housing and Development campaign. When he died in 1954, his largest public bequest was to Brown.
This portrait by Laurens is one of three by that artist in the Brown Portrait Collection. Laurens also painted the likeness of Henry Sharpe's wife, Mary Elizabeth Sharpe, which hangs next to Henry Sharpe's portrait in Sharpe Refectory; as well as the likeness of his brother-in-law Jesse Metcalf, which hangs in the Metcalf Complex.