Henry Ossawa Tanner

• Born: June 21, 1859
• Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
• Died: May 25, 1937
• Place of death: Paris, France

Artist

Tanner was the first African American artist to attain international recognition. His popularity surged in 1897, when his painting became a major attraction at the Salon in Paris. In 1996, a painting by Tanner became the first painting by an African American to be added to the White House’s permanent collection.

Area of achievement: Art and photography

Early Life

Henry Ossawa Tanner (OS-uh-wuh) was born on June 21, 1859, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Benjamin Tucker Tanner and Sarah Miller Tanner. Benjamin was a college-educated, seminary-trained ordained African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister; he became a bishop in 1888 and often wrote about religious and racial issues in his publications. Sarah was a former slave who escaped through the Underground Railroad and shared her husband’s commitment to education by conducting a neighborhood school in their Pittsburgh home. Sarah’s father was the son of a white planter, which accounted for Henry’s light complexion.

Tanner, the oldest of seven children, was thirteen years old when he and his father were walking through Fairmount Park and saw an artist painting a landscape. Tanner’s imagination was captured, and he decided that he must try to paint. His passion for the medium never wavered, and after a taking a brief job in a flour mill that made him seriously ill, his parents supplemented his income as an artist for the next eighteen years. In the fall of 1879, Tanner entered the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he studied with the renowned Thomas Eakins. When he was thirty years old, Tanner moved to Atlanta in an attempt to set up a photographic portrait studio and become financially independent. This failed attempt spurred his belief that only in Europe could he pursue his dream of becoming a successful artist.

Life’s Work

Tanner sailed to Europe on January 4, 1891. After arriving in Paris, he enrolled in the Académie Julian, where he had the opportunity to study with Jean-Paul Laurens and Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, and was warmly welcomed into the raucous crowd of students. He found the environment stimulating and a stark contrast to the oppression and segregation he experienced in Atlanta. Benjamin-Constant took particular interest in Tanner’s work and encouraged him to create a piece to enter at the Salon du Société des Artistes Français. This effort resulted in The Bagpipe Lesson, which established a significant theme in Tanner’s works: young people studying under the tutelage of elders.

In 1893, Tanner contracted typhoid fever and returned to Philadelphia to recover. During this time, he reflected on the humiliating caricatures that constituted the normal depiction of African Americans at the time. In response, he created two of his most famous works, The Banjo Lesson and The Thankful Poor, both of which portray African Americans with sensitivity and dignity. In 1981, The Thankful Poor was auctioned for $250,000.

Tanner returned to Paris and, in 1896, he won an honorable mention for Daniel in the Lions’ Den at the Salon. The following year, his Raising of Lazarus was awarded a medal at the Salon and purchased by the French government. That year, Tanner was given the opportunity to visit the Holy Land, which had a profound impact on his paintings. The Salon paintings were followed by a series of critically acclaimed religious works that established Tanner as one of the most celebrated artists of that time.

On December 14, 1899, Tanner married Jessie MacCauley Olssen, an opera singer of Swedish-Scottish descent. They returned briefly to New York City, where their son, Jesse Ossawa Tanner, was born on September 25, 1903. Spurred by prejudice against their interracial marriage, they returned to Paris. After battling depression caused by the devastation of World War I, Tanner was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Farm Service Bureau of the American Red Cross. While he was serving in the war, the prejudice he encountered left deep emotional scars that were reflected in his stiff paintings of American soldiers.

Tanner’s wife died on September 8, 1925. He continued to live in Paris, where he was often criticized for not devoting himself to racial themes or to abstract or impressionist styles. He died in his sleep in Paris on May 25, 1937, and was buried next to his wife.

Significance

Tanner overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles to become one of the most respected artists of his day. His paintings of African Americans paid profound tribute to their dignity and humanity. After his death, Tanner was largely forgotten, but thirty years later, a resurgence of interest in his work began when his paintings were exhibited at the City University of New York.

Bibliography

Bruce, Marcus C. Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual Biography. New York: Crossroad, 2002. Examines Tanner’s spiritual life and artistic work and connects his life with his paintings.

Mathews, Marcia M. Henry Ossawa Tanner: American Artist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Considered the seminal biography of Tanner, it includes excerpts from correspondence and twenty-two plates of paintings and photographs.

Schwain, Kristin. “’A School-Master to Lead Men to Christ’: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Biblical Paintings and Religious Practice.” In Signs of Grace: Religion and American Art in the Gilded Age. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008. Discusses how Tanner’s belief in religious experience and social equality were shaped by his experience with the AME church.