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Tanner, Henry O.
artist of biblical and genre scenes and the first African American artist of international acclaim. Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on the eve of the Civil War. His father, Benjamin Tucker Tanner, was an African Methodist Episcopal minister and bishop, an editor of the Christian Recorder, and a political activist. His mother, Sarah Tanner, was a former slave who had escaped via the Underground Railroad. When Tanner was young his family moved to Philadelphia, where his father became well known in the African American community for his promotion of racial uplift and equality. Bishop Tanner befriended Frederick Douglass—and occasionally opposed him. Through the Christian Recorder, Bishop Tanner both criticized and lauded Douglass's opinions on a variety of matters. Unlike his father, Henry Tanner was not an activist. He instead became a painter, a difficult career for a black man in the white-dominated art world. He discovered as a teenager that his skin color would be a barrier to a career when many artists in Philadelphia denied him apprenticeships. In 1879 he gained entrance into the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; he was the academy's only black student. Due to the racism he faced there, he attended class only intermittently and left in 1885. Racism would plague Tanner throughout his career. In 1891 he sailed to Europe intending to study art in Rome but ended up at the Académie Julian in France. Thereafter Tanner made his home in France and returned to the United States only once for a brief time. For Tanner, Europe lacked the racial barriers he had confronted in America. During his stay in the United States, Tanner painted The Banjo Lesson (1893) and The Thankful Poor (1894), which were black-genre paintings that depicted the lives of African Americans with dignity and respect. These paintings were Tanner's attempts to counter previous caricatures of African American life. At the African Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition (1893) he gave a speech that affirmed the talents of black artists and their ability to compete with their white counterparts. Tanner did not produce any more black-genre paintings after 1894, instead beginning the biblical paintings that garnered international acclaim. His most famous paintings include Daniel in the Lion's Den (1895), The Resurrection of Lazarus (1897), and The Annunciation (1898). Tanner won an honorable mention for Daniel in the Lion's Den in the French Salon; the French government purchased his Resurrection of Lazarus, which was a great honor for an American artist. Tanner continued painting biblical scenes until the end of his life. His choice of themes drew criticism from several African Americans, including Alain Locke, who claimed that he was denying his racial heritage. Regardless of such criticism, Tanner's art achieved international fame, and the French government made him a chevalier in the Legion of Honor, the highest award for foreigners. Tanner's success paved the way for other African American artists on the world's stage. See also Discrimination; Douglass, Frederick; Racism; Underground Railroad; and Visual Arts.
Bibliography
- Bruce, Marcus. Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual Biography. New York: Crossroad, 2002. The newest biography on Tanner with the best bibliography.
- Mathews, Marcia M. Henry Ossawa Tanner: An American Artist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969. The seminal biography of Tanner, accurately detailing his work and life.
