Henry Hensche (February 25, 1899 - December 10, 1992) was an American painter and teacher. Born in Germany, Henry Hensche came to the United States by way of Antwerp, Belgium. He was ten years old when he arrived at Ellis Island aboard the British steamship S.S. Kroonland, along with his sister Erna, and his father Fred. His mother died before he was two. At the age of 17 he began to work in the stockyards so that he could afford to attend the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied under George Bellows. He also studied at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts, the Art Students League of New York, the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design, and Charles Webster Hawthorne's Cape Cod School of Art.
Charles Hawthorne was the greatest influence on Hensche.
After the death of Charles Hawthorne, Hensche began to teach on his own in Provincetown. It is widely believed that Hawthorne "passed the mantle" to Hensche, though this is not the case. In fact, several other of Hawthorne's students started schools of their own. It is worth of note that Hensche's Cape School was the only one of these schools to survive for any significant length of time (well over fifty years).
In 2010, former students of Henry Hensche: John Clayton, John Ebersberger, Cedric Egeli, Rob Longley, and Hilda Neily, founded the Cape School of Art in Provincetown, in an effort to pass along Henry Hensche's teachings. John Ebersberger also teaches at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts and l'Atelier aux Couleurs in California.