Overview

Henry Ossawa Tanner was an American artist and the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study, and continued to live there after being accepted in French artistic circles. His painting entitled Daniel in the Lions' Den was accepted into the 1896 Salon,[3] the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

After his own self-study in art as a young man, Tanner enrolled in 1879 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The only black student, he became a favorite of the painter Thomas Eakins, who had recently begun teaching there. Tanner made other connections among artists, including Robert Henri. In the late 1890s he was sponsored for a trip to Palestine by Rodman Wanamaker, who was impressed by his paintings of biblical themes.

Career

• With the help of Joseph C. Hartzell, a bishop, he exhibited some of his paintings in Cincinnati. In 1891, he went on a tour across Europe with the patronage of that bishop and Mrs. Hartzell.
  
• In Paris, he attended the Academie Julian, an art school. Colours like blue and blue-green played a dominant role in most of his paintings that he created at that time. He also started using the artistic technique of light and shade during that period.
  
• In 1893, he came back to the United States to deliver a paper on African Americans and art at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. In the same year, he created one of his famous works ‘The Banjo Lesson’ while he was in Philadelphia.
  
• Through this work, he highlighted the role of blacks as entertainers in American culture. In the next year, he created ‘The Thankful Poor’. In this year, he displayed his paintings at the annual Paris salon.
  
• In 1899, Booker T. Washington, an African-American educator and author published an article on Tanner. The publication of this article played a significant role in securing him an important position in the art industry of America.
  
• During that time, he displayed his creations through a number of exhibitions in Philadelphia, Boston, New York, Chicago and several art centres of America. ‘Abraham’s Oak’ was his one of the remarkable creations that he drew in 1905.
  
• In 1918, he skilfully handled the image of sunlight in the painting titled ‘Birthplace of Joan of Arc at Domremy-la-Pucelle’. In 1925, an African-American journal titled “The Crisis” depicted him as a representative of African-American creative persons.

Legacy

Tanner's work was influential during his career; he has been called "the greatest African American painter to date." The early paintings of William Edouard Scott, who studied with Tanner in France, show the influence of Tanner's technique.

Tanner's Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City (c. 1885; oil on canvas) hangs in the Green Room at the White House; it is the first painting by an African-American artist to have been purchased for the permanent collection of the White House. The painting is a landscape with a "view across the cool gray of a shadowed beach to dunes made pink by the late afternoon sunlight. A low haze over the water partially hides the sun."

On View

• Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Morris Museum of Art, Augusta
• New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans
• Art Institute of Chicago
• Saint Louis Art Museum, Sait Louis
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.
• White House, Washington D.C.
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
• Birmingham Museum of Art
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
• Harvey B. Gantt Center, Charlotte

ArtWorks

The Two Disciples at the Tomb

Henry Ossawa Tanner's Two Disciples at the Tomb depicts the discovery of Christ’s empty tomb on Easter Sunday. The event is explained in the Gospel of John in the Bible’s New Testament: "And [John] stooping down, and looking in, saw the linen clothes lying; yet went he not in." Here, John’s youthful face reflects the emptiness of the arched tomb. Next to him, bowing his head in awe, stands the bearded disciple Peter, who will later become the leader of the Christian church.

Flight into Egypt

Fleeing to Egypt to avoid Herod's massacre of all newborn children, Joseph walks beside his wife the Virgin Mary, who cradles the Christ child while seated on a donkey. As the family passes a pagan idol atop a column, it breaks in half, signifying the downfall of paganism and the onset of the new Christian era. In the middle ground at the left, soldiers pursuing the Holy Family stop to question a farmer in a field.

Georgia Landscape

It is believed that Tanner painted this work in the fall of 1889 while living in Atlanta. However, some scholars argue that this work was created while the artist still resided in the Philadelphia area. Whether or not the work is indeed Georgian, it does provide a link to the artist's brief Southern sojourn.

Lions in the Desert

Lions in the Desert is a painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, painted in 1897–98 during a visit to the Middle East.

The Banjo Lesson

The painting shows an elderly black man teaching a boy, assumed to be his grandson, how to play the banjo. This deceptively simple-looking work explores several important themes. Blacks had long been stereotyped as entertainers in American culture, and the image of a black man playing the banjo appears throughout American art of the late 19th century.

The Thankful Poor

Tanner depicts a grandfather and a grandchild giving thanks before a meal. He focused on the people and the main objects in the room, painting them with great detail, while everything else blends in with the light and brushstrokes in the painting. The warm and expressive light that Tanner paints with helps to enhance the spiritual quality of the painting.

The Young Sabot Maker

The Young Sabot Maker is an oil on canvas painting made by Henry Ossawa Tanner in 1895. Measuring 47 3/8 x 35 3/8 inches (120.3 x 89.9 cm), the painting was purchased by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in 1995. The painting depicts an older man proudly watching a boy push with his weight against the crossbar handle of a sawhorse to carve a sabot, or wooden shoe