Julia Henri is a full-time published writer and photographer working from the forests of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. She began her journalism career at the Boston Herald where she worked her way through the newsroom to staff writer, covering crime and investigative stories. She has since written and photographed for numerous newspapers, magazines, trade publications and auction houses, with experience in both print and television newsrooms.

Henri's path to journalism was an unusual one. She began her education as a cellist and pianist at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music while also studying journalism at the University of Cincinnati. Later, on scholarship at Massachusetts College of Art, she studied graphic design and illustration while continuing to write and photograph. A fascination with fourteenth- and fifteenth-century illuminated manuscripts led to years of study in Renaissance drawing and painting methods, historic pigments and materials, vellum and parchment, gilding, and related techniques. She also undertook research focused on fifteenth-century illuminated manuscripts in the Rare Manuscripts Department of the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. In contrast, Julia studied crime and mystery writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts; an experience that became a lasting inspiration for her own storytelling.

Today, Henri writes and photographs "Juicy History," her popular independent publication on Substack. She leans toward stories that have not been told before. These often begin with visual or material evidence: an unfamiliar painting, an overlooked photograph, historic clothing, an object in a museum collection, or an image buried in a nineteenth-century periodical.

From there, she follows the evidence outward, placing the object and the people surrounding it within the larger social and cultural history of their time. She works extensively with primary sources and historic images, often restoring previously unpublished photographs to illustrate her stories. Her years as a professional photographer have taught her to look closely at images, not simply as illustrations, but as evidence.

More recently, Henri spent years in the fine-art and high-end auction worlds as an Accredited Member of the International Society of Appraisers, working with major museums and libraries, prominent private collections, and significant estates. Her specialties ranged from fine art and historic costume and textiles to photography, antiquarian books, historic documents and manuscripts, as well as glass and decorative objects. The discipline of authentication and establishing an honest written provenance through substantiated research still shapes the way she works. She wants to know what an object is, where it came from, what can be proven about it...and what cannot. The story counts.

Henri is currently at work on a long-form nonfiction project drawn from unpublished oral-history interviews, personal correspondence, photographs, and archival records, comparing stories and personal anecdotes from a time well over 150 years ago to what can actually be found in the historical record.

Read Julia Henri’s latest work at 'Juicy History" on Substack.

"Juicy History" is independently researched, written, and photographed by Julia Henri.
No AI-generated writing is published.

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