Henry Ossawa Tanner

The Annunciation

Christ and His Mother Studying the Scriptures

Abraham's Oak

The Good Shepherd

Sand Dunes at Sunset Atlantic City

Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist. He was the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim.[1] He moved to Paris in 1891 to study, and decided to stay there, being readily accepted in French artistic circles.[2] His painting entitled Daniel in the Lions' Den was accepted into the 1896 Salon.[3]

After teaching himself some art, he had enrolled as a young man in 1879 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He was the only black student and became a favorite of the painter Thomas Eakins, who had recently started teaching there. He also 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.

Early life
Thomas Eakins, a Portrait of Henry O. Tanner, 1900. Oil on canvas, 24⅛" × 20¼". The Hyde Collection.

Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1835-1923) was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent black denomination in the United States. Being educated at Avery College and Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, he developed a literary career.[4] In addition, he was a political activist. His mother Sarah Tanner was born into slavery but had escaped to the North via the Underground Railroad. The family moved to Philadelphia when Tanner was young. There his father became a friend of Frederick Douglass, sometimes supporting him, sometimes criticizing.[5]

Education
Spinning By Firelight (1894)

Although many artists refused to accept an African-American apprentice, in 1879 Tanner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, becoming the only black student.[5] His decision to attend the school came at an exciting time in the history of artistic institutional training. Art academies had long relied on tired notions of study devoted almost entirely to plaster cast studies and anatomy lectures. This changed drastically with the addition of Thomas Eakins as “Professor of Drawing and Painting” to the Pennsylvania Academy. Eakins encouraged new methods such as study from live models, direct discussion of anatomy in male and female classes, and dissections of cadavers to further familiarity and understanding of the human body. Eakins’s progressive views and ability to excite and inspire his students would have a profound effect on Tanner. The young artist proved to be one of Eakins’ favorite students; two decades after Tanner left the Academy, Eakins painted his portrait, making him one of a handful of students to be so honored.[6]

At the Academy Tanner befriended artists with whom he kept in contact throughout the rest of his life, most notably Robert Henri, one of the founders of the Ashcan School. During a relatively short time at the Academy, Tanner developed a thorough knowledge of anatomy and the skill to express his understanding of the weight and structure of the human figure on the canvas.[3]

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Gateway, Tangier, 1912. St. Louis Art Museum.
Issues of racism

Although he gained confidence as an artist and began to sell his work, he had to deal with racism in Philadelphia. It had traditionally had strong ties to the South through numerous planter families and commercial ties; in addition, planters had sent their daughters to Philadelphia academies. After the Civil War, many African Americans left the rural South and settled in Northern urban centers, at times coming into conflict with the increasing population of immigrants from Ireland, southern and eastern Europe. Although painting became a therapeutic source of release for Tanner, the lack of acceptance in society was painful. In his autobiography The Story of an Artist’s Life, Tanner describes the burden of racism:

I was extremely timid and to be made to feel that I was not wanted, although in a place where I had every right to be, even months afterwards caused me sometimes weeks of pain. Every time any one of these disagreeable incidents came into my mind, my heart sank, and I was anew tortured by the thought of what I had endured, almost as much as the incident itself.[7]

In an attempt to gain artistic acceptance, Tanner left America for France in late 1891. Except for occasional brief returns home, he spent the rest of his life there.

Life abroad
Henry Ossawa Tanner - The Arch - Brooklyn Museum

After a photography studio in Atlanta had been unsuccessful, Tanner taught drawing at Clark College which is now called Clark Atlanta University for a short period.[8] In 1891 he traveled to Paris, France to study at the Académie Julian. He also joined the American Art Students Club of Paris. Paris was a welcome escape for Tanner; within French art circles the issue of race mattered little. Tanner acclimated quickly to Parisian life.

In Paris, Tanner was introduced to many new artists whose works would affect the way in which he painted. At the Louvre, Tanner encountered and studied the works of Gustave Courbet, Jean-Baptiste Chardin and Louis Le Nain.[9] These artists had painted scenes of ordinary people in their environment and the effect in Tanner’s work is noticeable. The influence of Courbet’s The Stonebreakers (1850; Destroyed) can be seen in the similarities painted by Tanner in his The Young Sabot Maker (1895). Both paintings explore the theme of apprenticeship and hand labor.[9]

He studied under renowned artists such as Jean Joseph Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens.[7] With their guidance, Tanner began to establish a reputation. He settled at the Étaples art colony in Normandy. Earlier Tanner painted marine scenes that showed man’s struggle with the sea, but by 1895 he was creating mostly religious works. A transitional work from this period is the recently rediscovered painting of a fishing boat tossed on the waves, which is held by the Smithsonian American Art Museum.[10]

The Good Shepherd

This is based on the description of a miracle in the Gospel of Matthew in which 'the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary' (14:24). The simple resources at Étaples were well adapted to his subject matter, which in several cases featured Biblical figures in dark interiors.

His painting entitled Daniel in the Lions' Den was accepted into the 1896 Salon.[3] Later that year he painted The Resurrection of Lazarus.[11] The critical praise for this piece solidified Tanner’s position in the artistic elite and heralded the future direction of his paintings, which treated mostly biblical themes. Upon seeing The Resurrection of Lazarus,[12] art critic Rodman Wanamaker offered to cover an all expenses-paid trip for Tanner to the Middle East.[3] Wanamaker felt that any serious painter of biblical scenes needed to see the environment firsthand and that a painter of Tanner's caliber was well worth the investment.

Tanner quickly accepted the offer. Before the next Salon opened, Tanner set forth for Palestine. Explorations of various mosques and biblical sites as well as character studies of the local population allowed Tanner to further his artistic training. His paintings developed a powerful air of mystery and spirituality. Tanner was not the first artist to study the Middle East in person. Since the 1830s, a growing interest in Orientalism had been growing in Europe. Artists such as Eugène Delacroix, David Roberts, and later Henri Matisse made such tours to capitalize on this curiosity.[3]

In his adopted home of France, he was given one of their highest honors in 1923, when he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and considered this "citation by the French government to be the greatest honor of his illustrious career."[13]

The Banjo Lesson
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson, 1893.

In 1893 on a short return visit to the United States, Tanner painted his most famous work, The Banjo Lesson, while in Philadelphia. 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. Thomas Worth,[14] Willy Miller, Walter M. Dunk, Eastman Johnson, and Tanner’s teacher Thomas Eakins had tackled the subject in their artwork.[9]

These images are often reduced to a minstrel-type portrayal. Tanner painted a sensitive reinterpretation. Instead of a generalization, the painting portrays a specific moment of human interaction. The two characters concentrate intently on the task before them. They seem to be oblivious to the rest of the world, which enlarges the sense of real contact and cooperation. The skillfully painted portraits of the individuals make it obvious that these are real people and not types.

In addition to being a meaningful exploration of human qualities, the piece is masterfully painted. Tanner undertakes the difficult endeavor of portraying two separate and varying light sources. A natural white, blue glow from outside enters from the left while the warm light from a fireplace is apparent on the right. The figures are illuminated where the two light sources meet; some have hypothesized this as a manifestation of Tanner’s situation in transition between two worlds, his American past and his newfound home in France.[9]

Painting style
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Annunciation, 1898, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Tanner is often regarded as a realist painter,[15] focusing on accurate depictions of subjects.[16] While works such as The Banjo Lesson were concerned with everyday life as an African American, Tanner later painted themes based on religious subjects, for which he is now best known.[8] It is likely that Tanner's father, a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, was a formative influence for him.[3]

Tanner's body of work is not limited to one specific approach to painting. His works vary from meticulous attention to detail in some paintings to loose, expressive brushstrokes in others. Often both methods are employed simultaneously. The combination of these two techniques makes for a masterful balance of skillful precision and powerful expression. Tanner was also interested in the effects that color could have in a painting.[17] Many of his paintings accentuate a specific area of the color spectrum. Warmer compositions such as The Resurrection of Lazarus (1896) and The Annunciation (1898) express the intensity and fire of religious moments, and the elation of transcendence between the divine and humanity. Other paintings emphasize cooler, blue hues. Works such as The Good Shepherd (1903) and Return of the Holy Women (1904) evoke a feeling of somber religiosity and introspection. Tanner often experimented with light in a composition. The source and intensity of light and shadow in his paintings create a physical, almost tangible space and atmosphere while adding emotion and mood to the environment. Tanner also used light to add symbolic meaning to his paintings. In The Annunciation (1898) the angel Gabriel is represented as a column of light that forms, together with the shelf in the upper left corner, a cross.[18] This view of the representation of Gabriel is consistent with James Romaine's comment that "Through the visual language of her pose and expressionTanner draws the viewer into Mary’s

inner life of virtue, trepidation, acceptance, and wonderment."[19] Mary's acceptance includes her acceptance of the cross that she will have to bear by consenting to be the Lord's handmaid (Luke 1:38).
Marriage and family
The Tanner family at home in France. Handwritten note on verso identifies the individuals seated at the table as: Jesse Tanner, Mrs. Tanner, Barlow, Henry Ossawa Tanner.

In 1899 he married Jessie Olsson, a white Swedish-American opera singer.[20] A contemporary, Virginia Walker Course, described their relationship as one of equal talents, but racist attitudes insisted the relationship was unequal: "Fan, did you ever hear of a miss [sic] Olsson of Portland? She has a beautiful voice I believe and came to Paris to cultivate it and she has married a darkey artist [...] He is an awefully [sic] talented man but he is black. [...] She seems like a well educated girl and really very nice but it makes me sick to see a cultivated woman marry a man like that. I don't know his work but he is very talented they say." [21] Jessie Tanner died in 1925, twelve years before her husband, and he grieved her deeply through the twenties. He sold the family home in Les Charmes where they had been so happy together. They are buried next to each other in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine.[22] They had a son Jesse, who survived Tanner at his death.[8]

Later years
Sodom and Gomorrha, 1920

During World War I, Tanner worked for the Red Cross Public Information Department, at which time he also painted images from the front lines of the war.[23] His works featuring African-American troops were rare during the war. In 1923 the French state made him a knight of the Legion of Honour for his work as an artist.

Tanner met with fellow African-American artist Palmer Hayden in Paris circa 1927. They discussed artistic technique and he gave Hayden advice on interacting with French society.[24]

Several of Tanner's paintings were purchased by Atlanta art collector J. J. Haverty, who founded Haverty Furniture Co. and was instrumental in establishing the High Museum of Art. Tanner's Étaples Fisher Folk is among several paintings from the Haverty collection now in the High Museum's permanent collection.[25]

Tanner died peacefully in Paris, France on May 25, 1937.[23]
Legacy
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Seine (c. 1902), one of three paintings by African Americans on display in 2012 in the National Gallery of Art's American Art galleries.[26]

Tanner's work was influential during his career; he has been called "the greatest African American painter to date."[27] The early paintings of William Edouard Scott, with whom Tanner studied in France, show the influence of Tanner’s technique.[9] In addition, some of Norman Rockwell’s illustrations deal with the same themes and compositions that Tanner pursued. Rockwell's proposed cover of the Literary Digest in 1922, for example, shows an older black man playing the banjo for his grandson. The light sources are nearly identical to those in Tanner's Banjo Lesson. A fireplace illuminates the right side of the picture while natural light enters from the left. Both use similar objects as well such as the clothing, chair, crumpled hat on the floor.[9]

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 be 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." It was purchased for $100,000 by the White House Endowment Fund during the Bill Clinton administration from Dr. Rae Alexander-Minter, grandniece of the artist.[28]

Exhibitions
1973 U.S. commemorative stamp honoring Tanner.

1972. The Art of Henry Ossawa Tanner. Glen Falls, New York: The Hyde Collection.
1972. 19th Century American Landscape. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art.
1976. Two Centuries of Black American Art. Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
1989. Black Art Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African-American Art. Dallas Museum of Art.
1993. Revisiting the White City: American Art at the 1893 World's Fair[14]
2010. Henry Ossawa Tanner and his Contemporaries,[29] Des Moines Art Center (Dec.- Feb. 2011).
2012. Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit,[30] Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia (Jan. - Apr) then to Cincinnati Art Museum[31] (May - Sept.) and to Houston Museum of Fine Arts (Oct. - Jan. 2013)

Selected works
Henry Ossawa Tanner's studio

Seascape-Jetty (c.1876–1878)
Pomp at the Zoo (1880) Private Collection
Joachim Leaving the Temple (c. 1882-1888) Baltimore Museum of Art
Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City (1886) Estate of Sadie T.M. Alexander (On permanent display at White House)
The Banjo Lesson (1893) Hampton University Museum, Virginia
The Thankful Poor (1894) William H. and Camille O. Cosby
The Young Sabot Maker (1895) Estate of Sadie T.M. Alexander
Daniel in the Lions' Den (1895) Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Resurrection of Lazarus (1896) Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1897) Baltimore Museum of Art
Lions in the Desert (c. 1897–1900) Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Annunciation (1898) Philadelphia Museum of Art, W.P Wilstach Collection
Boy and Sheep Lying under a Tree (1881) Private Collection (On display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art)
The Good Shepherd (1903) Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University
Return of the Holy Women (1904) Cedar Rapids Art Gallery, Iowa
Two Disciples at the Tomb (1905–1906) Art Institute of Chicago
The Holy Family (1909–10) Muskegon Museum of Art, Michigan, Hackley Picture Fund
Moroccan Scene (about 1912) Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama
Palace of Justice, Tangier (1912–13) Smithsonian American Art Museum[32]
Scene in Cairo Mabee-Gerrer Museum of Art, Shawnee, Oklahoma

Other works

Abraham's Oak

A View of Fez

View of the Seine, looking toward Notre Dame

Coastal Landscape, France, 1919

Fishermen at Sea

The Young Sabot Maker

Mary

The Disciples See Christ Walking on the Water

Angels Appearing before the Shepherds

Jesus and Nicodemus

Daniel in the Lions' Den

The Annunciation to the Shepherds

Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City - in the White House.

Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, 1929-30, High Museum of Art