2003:

In the fifties, the city of San Francisco was the center of a cultural renaissance. San Francisco had become a Mecca for artists, writers, musicians, bohemians, and sexual activists as well as political militants. At that time, San Francisco was the home of the Beat Generation, a movement that proposed a social and cultural revolution in the country. Among the leading writers of the movement were Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William Burroughs.

To write poetry, to write music, to paint, to act, to dance, to dare a dream was one of the slogans of the beatniks. Shortly thereafter, it would also inspire youths like the American artist Stephen Henriques, who wanted to paint, who loved music, and was bold enough to dare a dream.

Henriques was born in Palo Alto, California, in 1944, and showed a unique interest in drawing since he was a child.  With the support of his family, he decided to focus on a career in art. At the age of 16, he began to study fine arts.  Three years later he enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute where he studied for seven years and received his bachelor's and master's degrees in fine arts.

Stephen remembers clearly the professors and the lessons at the San Francisco Art Institute. Bruce McGaw told me to use colors truthfully. Jack Jefferson said that when I finished school I would have to learn to paint all over again and only then would I discover my own true identity. Donald Weygandt taught me something that I always seek to transmit: To paint is love.

Jazz was the soundtrack of the age, and the works of Thelonius Monk, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Lester Young, and Oliver Nelson soon exerted marked influence in his career. Jazz has always been close to my heart, but I feel that it really became a part of my work in 1987, after I saw the film about Lester Young, Round Midnight. After the movie, I went home inspired and painted a canvas. That day was a transition in my career, the beginning of a new phase, Henriques said.

Another important influence of Stephen was the painter Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1994) who had taught at the San Francisco Art Institute and had left a strong impact. Diebenkorn is akin to the abstract expressionists like Rothko and Jackson Pollock, but his work was also related to impressionism, since his abstractions - with their suggestive line and fields of color - represented the luminous sky, the sea, and the hills of California.

Studying painting in the 1960's was not a simple task, but Stephen never stopped daring to dream. He wanted to dominate the techniques, the paints, the materials, but at that period in the United States, the world had begun to witness the pop art boom. It was very hard to paint at the same time as Andy Warhol, who painted Campbell soup cans and received all the attention of the media, Henriques said.

In 1973, after spending one year in Paris, where he was interested in abstraction, Stephen returned to the United States and discovered meditation, a practice that had been widely disseminated on the West Coast through the hippie movement and the Flower Power Revolution.

Stephen began the process of self-awareness based on the ideals of love and kindness of the Indian guru, Kirpal Singh (1894-1974) and later followed his disciple Thakar Singh, which is still active. Another thought process or mindset that was crucial to the development of his career and his personal life was the teaching of a disciple of the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu, who said, The hardest thing in life is for you to follow your destiny. Lao Tzu is the creator of the basis of Taoism, one of the fundamentals of Chinese culture.

I understand colors and this was a gift that was granted me, although I have had many problems with colors, ever since the time I studied in art school. But all the transformations that I have gone through have not bothered me. For me, creativity is like life, something that is in a state of constant transformation, something you cannot control. You have to accept it and let it lead you, Henriques concluded.                                                                                                                                                      

Celso Fioravante, Journalist and Art Critic 

It is with great happiness that I give

"Cheesecake" to Ben Franklin Press for reproduction

on the occasion of their 20th anniversary,

for they too are artists.

                    Stephen

Proprietors of Ben Franklin Press, Dennis Franklin Patterson and Teri Ann Faychild, are thrilled to share the artwork of their very dear friend Stephen Henriques with clients and friends.

Ben Franklin Press is using Stephen's incredible work as a vehicle to introduce a whole new way of printing that creates such a high quality that the image appears like that of a continuous tone. This new form of lithography brings together the highly skilled craftspeople of Ben Franklin Press and a new screening technology called "Staccato". Like the Jazz musicians that Stephen depicts in "CHEESECAKE", Staccato is an orchestration of small random dots, beautiful rich hues, and bright colours that perform down to the finest detail. Only a handful of printers domestically, indeed

internationally, can perform in this unique new venue.

Ben Franklin Press is proud to be able to reproduce "Cheesecake" with the finest technology available in the world: If you have a loop, take a close look at the printed image...you will not believe what you see!

2004:

Ben Franklin Press proudly announces that it will relocate the plant south of the city of Napa in spring of 2004 to a vibrant business environment surrounded by major wine producers and other thriving companies.

In addition to relocating, Ben Franklin Press has recently purchased a Sanjo PO3 Pressure Sensitive Label Press and is expanding its staff in order to accomodate the printing needs of the wine, food, and commercial industries.

This new growth was developed in order to support our mission of providing unsurpassed printing excellence, customer service, and to foster creative, collaborative relationships with our customers, vendors, and community.

As always, we celebrate the power of the printed word.