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Henry Ossawa Tanner and
His Influence in America
June 7 - November 26, 2006
One of the first African-American
artists to achieve international acclaim, Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937)
welcomed a younger generation of artists into his studio to give them advice
and encourage their careers. Henry Ossawa Tanner and His Influence in America,
on view at The Baltimore Museum of Art June 7 - November 26, 2006, explores
how Tanner's art and example inspired the succeeding generation of African-American
artists in their search for racial and artistic identity in 20th-century
America.
The exhibition features six paintings by Tanner along with
approximately 40 paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs from the BMA's
collection by some of the foremost African-American artists of the 20th
century, including Hale Woodruff, Jacob Lawrence, James Van Der Zee, and
Romare Bearden.
Tanner, who spent most of his adult life working in Paris
and the French countryside, became a hopeful symbol to many artists who
were to contribute to the Harlem Renaissance. His artistic success and his
international acclaim were an inspiration to this next generation whose
art and lives were impacted by racism, modernism, and the call by African-American
intellectual voices to simultaneously embrace their African heritage and
Eurocentric modern art
The majority of the works in the exhibition are drawn from
the BMA's distinguished collection of African-African art. The Museum began
exhibiting and collecting African-American art more than 60 years ago when
the Museum presented one of the first exhibitions of works by African-American
artists in the country. In recent years the BMA has added more than 50 works
by both historical and contemporary artists, from important examples by
the early 19th-century portraitist Joshua Johnson to contemporary works
by David Hammons, Kara Walker, and Lorna Simpson.
This is the second in a series of exhibitions (see Henry Ossawa Tanner and the Lure of Paris) that highlight
the art, life, and influences of Henry Ossawa Tanner. Henry Ossawa Tanner
and the Lure of Paris, which was on view December 7, 2005 - May 28, 2006,
explored the influence of 19th-century French art on Tanner's work.
This exhibition is guest curated by Dr. James Smalls, Associate
Professor of Art History and Theory at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
County. He teaches art and visual culture of the 19th and 20th centuries
in Europe and America and has written extensively on modern and contemporary
black visual culture.
HENRY OSSAWA TANNER
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) was the country's most
celebrated African-American artist at the turn of the 20th century. He was
born in Pittsburgh to Sarah Tanner, a former slave who had escaped on the
Underground Railroad, and Reverend Benjamin Tucker Tanner, one of the most
renowned intellectual figures in the African-American community in the 19th
century. The family had important ties to Maryland where Bishop Tanner was
principal of the A.M.E. Conference School for Freedman in Frederick and
pastor of the Bethel A.M.E. Church in Baltimore. The family later moved
to Philadelphia, where Tanner enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts and became the pupil of American artist Thomas Eakins.
Tanner traveled to Paris in 1892 and studied under the
French academic painters Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens.
He exhibited at the annual Salons and won prizes and recognition for his
work. Tanner traveled extensively in Egypt, Palestine, and Italy in 1896
and soon began producing the religious genre and Orientalist subjects for
which he is best known. In the last two decades of his life, he achieved
international recognition and the admiration of his peers. He achieved one
of his greatest distinctions in 1923 when the French government named him
chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He died in Paris in 1937.
AFRICAN-AMERICAN ART AT THE BMA
The BMA has a long and distinguished record of collecting
African-American art that began in 1939 when the Museum presented one of
the first exhibitions of works by African-American artists in the country.
In recent years the BMA has added more than 50 works by both historical
and contemporary artists. The collection includes contemporary works by
David Hammons, Kerry James Marshall, Martin Puryear, Allison Saar, Lorna
Simpson, Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, and Fred Wilson; important examples
of painting and sculpture by Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Beauford
Delaney, Sam Gilliam, Joshua Johnson, Jacob Lawrence, Horace Pippin, Alma
Thomas, and Hale Woodruff; and works on paper by John Thomas Biggers, Gordon
Parks, and James Van Der Zee. Among the Baltimore-based artists represented
are Carl Clark, Linda Day Clark, Cary Beth Cryor, Robert Houston, Tom Miller,
Kenneth Royster, and Joyce J. Scott. Many of these works can be seen on
display in the West Wing for Contemporary Art.
(above: Henry Ossawa Tanner. Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner.
1897. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Partial and Promised Gift of Eddie C.
Brown, C. Sylvia Brown, and their Children, Tonya Y. Brown Ingersol and
Jennifer L. Brown, Baltimore. BMA 2002.561)
(above: Henry Ossawa Tanner. Near East Scene. c.
1910. Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections: Bequest of Edith King
Pearson, 1964.76)
(above: Henry Ossawa Tanner. The Disciples See Christ
Walking on the Water. c. 1907. Des Moines Art Center.)
(above: Henry Ossawa Tanner. Le Touquet. c. 1910.
Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections: Gift of Florence L. Carpenter,
1941.5)
(above: Henry Ossawa Tanner. Christ Learning to Read.
c. 1911. Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections: Gift of the Des Moines
Association of Fine Arts, 1941.16)
(above: Aaron Douglas. Study for Aspects of Negro Life:
From Slavery through Reconstruction. 1934. The Baltimore Museum of Art:
Purchased with exchange funds from The Edward Joseph Gallagher III Memorial
Collection, BMA 2004.179)
(above: William H. Johnson. Harbor, Kerteminde (c.
1930-34). The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchase with exchange funds from
Joseph Edward Gallagher III Memorial Collection. BMA 2004.24)
(above: Hale Woodruff. Normandy Landscape. 1928.
The Baltimore Museum of Art: Edward Joseph Gallagher III Memorial Fund,
BMA 2002.279)
SELECTED TEXT PANELS FROM THE EXHIBITION
- Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859 -1937), the first African-American
painter of renown, spent most of his career as an expatriate in France.
Early in his career Tanner had experimented with a wide range of subjects,
including landscapes, portraits, still lifes, war scenes, and scenes of
black life. Beginning in 1897, he produced religious and Orientalist paintings
inspired by his extensive travels throughout Egypt, Palestine, and Italy.
These subjects fused the exotic, the everyday, and the spiritual, remaining
his major thematic focus and passion in the last two decades of his life.
-
- During the course of the twentieth century, the political
and cultural climate of the United States brought new pressures and influences
to bear on modern art. Neverthelss, Tanner's life and career as an artist
of international acclaim continued to inspire and influence many younger
African-American artists whose subject matter and style had changed markedly
from Tannerís more conventional approach. These African-American
artists who arrived on the national and international art scene after Tanner
differed from him in their marked engagement with social, political, and
racial realities related to the African-American experience. They were
also influenced by modernist trends such as abstraction, primitivism, and
themes based on African art.
-
- Henry Ossawa Tanner and His Influence in America is organized
around six paintings by Tanner. Four are on loan from the Des Moines Art
Center; and two more were lent by private collectors. Also included are
seven paintings and one print on temporary loan from Morgan State University.
These works are accompanied by approximately 40 selected pieces by African-American
artists from the BMAís permanent holdings of paintings, prints,
drawings, and photographs.
- Tanner was born in Pittsburgh in 1859. His mother was
a former slave and his father, Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, was a distinguished
and highly influential force in the African Methodist Episcopal Church
(AME). In 1879, Tanner became the first full-time African-American student
at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. He studied with Thomas Eakins
(1844 ñ 1916), and later, the genre painter Thomas Hovenden (1840
ñ 1895). Eakins and Hovenden gave Tanner a firm foundation in the
techniques of American academic realism. Eakins also introduced Tanner
to the artistic uses of photography. In 1888, Tanner moved to Atlanta,
Georgia, where he set up a photography studio and taught drawing at Clark
University. On travels to Highlands, North Carolina, he photographed and
produced sketches of poor rural African Americans. From these studies he
later painted two well-known sentimental genre paintings, The Banjo Lesson
(1893) and The Thankful Poor (1894). Although these images were critically
praised, the artist would soon forego such imagery in favor of biblical
scenes. In 1892, Tanner settled in Paris enrolling at the Académie
Julian under two respected French academic painters, Jean-Joseph Benjamin
Constant (1845ñ1902) and Jean-Paul Laurens (1838 -1921). A year
after his arrival, Tanner contracted typhoid fever and was forced to return
briefly to the United States to recuperate. There, he showed his work sporadically
but returned to Paris in 1894. Back in Paris, he began to exhibit regularly
at the prestigious French Salon almost every year. His large biblical scene,
The Resurrection of Lazarus, was purchased in 1897 for the French national
collection at the Musée du Luxembourg, a rare accolade that few
Americans could claim. At the time, a writer in the Quartier Latin announced
that the painting had placed the American ìamong the envied ranks
of the arrived.
-
- For Tanner, an African-American expatriate, the question
of professional arrival was inexorably linked with social and political
acceptance in his homeland. Increasing racial tensions and Jim Crow restrictions
in the United States drove the painter abroad. "I cannot fight prejudice
and paint" he announced before departing for Europe in 1892. Although
he returned to the United States for extended visits with friends and family,
France remained Tanner's primary residence until his death at age 79. Tanner's
integrity and artistic accomplishments would serve as role models for subsequent
generations of American and African-American artists.
CHECKLIST
-
- FREDERICK CORNELIUS ALSTON
(American, 18951996)
- Song Feast [Your Move (Deep River)], n.d.
- oil on canvas
- Collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan
State University, Baltimore, Maryland
-
- The Good Book Says, n.d.
- oil on canvas
- Overall: 35 x 29 1/2 in. (88.9 x 74.9 cm.)
- Collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan
State University, Baltimore, Maryland
-
-
- EDWARD MITCHELL BANNISTER
(American, 1828-1901)
- Last Light, 1890s
- Oil on wood panel
- 23-1/4 x 27-1/4 x 4 in. framed
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: W. Clagett Emory Bequest
Fund, in Memory of his Parents, William H. Emory of A, and Martha B. Emory;
and purchased as the gift of Stiles Tuttle Colwill and the Stiles Ewing
Tuttle Memorial Trust in Memory of Marion Tuttle Colwill, BMA 2002.560
-
-
- ROMARE HOWARD BEARDEN (American,
19111988)
- Mother and Child, 1970
- Collage of printed and coated papers with graphite and
ink
- Sheet: 472 x 278 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Abraham
Genecin, Baltimore, BMA 1984.345
-
- Morning (Carolina Morning), 1979
- Color lithograph
- Sheet: 550 x 704 mm.; Image: 487 x 628 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Tucky Schweizer,
Baltimore, BMA 1997.76
-
-
- JOHN THOMAS BIGGERS (American,
1924-2001)
- Cotton Pickers, 1952
- Etching
- Sheet: 502 x 300 mm.; Image: 453 x 237 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Edward Joseph Gallagher
III Memorial Fund, BMA 2002.1
-
-
- ELIZABETH CATLETT (Mexican,
born America 1915)
- Domestic Worker, 1946
- Crayon lithograph, with scraping
- Sheet: 614 x 494 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased as the gift of
Lorraine and Mark Schapiro, Baltimore,
- BMA 1997.20
-
- For Colored Only, 1946
- Brush and tusche, and crayon lithograph, with scraping
- Sheet: 323 x 247 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Dr. and Mrs. William W.
Magruder Fund
- BMA 1995.93
-
-
- ALLAN ROHAN CRITE (American,
born 1910)
- Black Madonna, 1937
- Woodcut
- Sheet: 279 x 216 mm.; Image: 229 x 152 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased as the gift of
Reba White Williams, New York, BMA 1995.39
-
-
- BEAUFORD DELANEY (American,
1901-1979)
- Portrait of a Boy, c.1940s
- pastel
- Overall: 31 x 25 1/16 in. (78.7 x 63.7 cm.)
- Collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan
State University, Baltimore, Maryland
-
- Untitled (Red), c. 1960
- Oil on canvas
- 24 x 19-1/2 in. (61 x 49.5 cm.) (unframed); Frame: 26
x 21-5/8 x 2 in. (66 x 54.9 x 5 cm.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Edward Joseph Gallagher
III Memorial Fund, BMA 1995.120
-
-
- AARON DOUGLAS (American,
1899-1979)
- Study for Aspects of Negro Life: From Slavery Through
Reconstruction, 1934
- Gouache over graphite
- Sheet: 515 x 760 mm. (20 1/4 x 29 15/16 in.) Image: 280
x 660 mm. (11 x 26 in.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchase with exchange funds
from the Edward Joseph Gallagher III Memorial Collection, BMA 2004.179
-
-
- DAVID C. DRISKELL (American,
born 1931)
- Yoruba Scene, 1972
- Woodcut
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Amalie and Randolph
Rothschild Accession Fund, BMA 2003.100
-
-
- BERNARD GOSS (American, 1913-1966)
- Portrait of Frederick Douglass, c.
1940
- Linoleum cut
- Sheet: 444 x 289 mm.; Image: 353 x 261 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Print Fund, BMA 1997.22
-
-
- SARGENT C. JOHNSON (American,
1888-1967)
- Dorothy C., 1938
- Crayon lithograph
- Sheet: 356 x 202 mm.; Image: 281 x 154 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: The United States General
Services Administration, formerly Federal Works Agency, Works Progress
Administration, on extended loan to the Baltimore Museum of Art,
- BMA L.1943.9.132
-
-
- WILLIAM H. JOHNSON (American,
1901-1970)
- Cagnes-sur-mer (White Houses),
n.d.
- Oil on burlap
- Collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan
State University, Baltimore, Maryland
-
- Come Unto Me Little Children,
c. 1941
- Collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan
State University, Baltimore, Maryland
-
- Fishing Boat, n.d.
- Oil on burlap
- Collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan
State University, Baltimore, Maryland
-
- Harbor, Kerteminde, c. 1930-1934
- Oil on burlap
- 23 1/2 x 29 in. (59.7 x 73.7 cm.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchase with exchange funds
from the Edward Joseph Gallagher III Memorial Collection, BMA 2004.24
-
- Lame Man, c. 1939
- Linoleum cut
- Sheet: 476 x 329 mm. Plate: 456 x 320 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchase with exchange funds
from Gift of Michael Goldberg and The American Federation of Arts; Gift
of Albert Kapp; Gift of Charles Seliger, in Memory of his Uncle, Dr. Robert
Seliger; Gift of Peter L. Sheldon; Gift of Jane and David Soyer; and Gift
of Mrs. Siefried Ullman
- BMA 2003.17
-
- Street in Cagnes-sur-mer,
n.d.
- Oil on burlap
- Collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan
State University, Baltimore, Maryland
-
-
- FREDERICK D. JONES (American,
born 1914)
- Male Figure with Halo, c.
1930-40
- Linoleum cut
- Sheet: 258 x 146 mm. (10 3/16 x 5 3/4 in.) Plate: 240
x 135 mm. (9 7/16 x 5 5/16 in.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Blanche Adler Memorial Fund,
BMA 2003.16
-
-
- JACOB LAWRENCE (American,
1917-2000)
- Lifeboat, 1945
- Gouache over graphite
- Sheet: 568 x 785 mm.; Image: 529 x 746 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of the Art Committee
of the Women's Cooperative Civic League
- BMA 1946.135
-
- Two Rebels, 1963
- Lithograph
- Sheet: 788 x 524 mm. (31 x 20 5/8 in.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Friends of Art Fund, BMA
1992.15
-
-
- HUGHIE LEE-SMITH (American,
1915-1999)
- Artist's Life No. 1, 1939
- Crayon, and brush and tusche lithograph
- Sheet: 330 x 252 mm.; Image: 280 x 215 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased as the gift of
Lorraine and Mark Schapiro, Baltimore
- BMA 1995.43
-
-
- HORACE PIPPIN (American,
1888-1946)
- Shell Holes and Observation Balloon, Champagne Sector,
c. 1931
- Oil on muslin
- 22-1/2 x 30-7/8 in. (57.2 x 78.5 cm.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of Mrs. John Merryman,
Jr., BMA 1967.48
-
-
- HAYWOOD BILL RIVERS (American,
1922-2001)
- Baptism, 1948
- Oil on canvas
- Overall: 26 1/8 x 22 in. (66.4 x 55.9 cm.) Frame: 32
x 28 in. (81.3 x 71.1 cm.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Gift of the Negro History
Week Committee, BMA 1949.56
-
- ALBERT ALEXANDER SMITH (American,
1896-1940)
- Baptism, 1930
- Crayon lithograph with scraping
- Sheet 251 x 325 mm.; Image: 188 x 262 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased as the gift of
Lorraine and Mark Schapiro, Baltimore
- BMA 2000.37
-
-
- WILLIAM E. SMITH (American,
born 1913)
- Day's Work Done, 1938
- Linoleum cut
- Mount: 435 x 278 mm.; Image: 230 x 202 mm. (cut to image)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased as the gift of
Mark and Lorraine Schapiro, Baltimore
- BMA 2002.564
-
- Bad Boy, 1938
- Linoleum cut
- Sheet: 400 x 321 mm.; Image: 340 x 241 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchased as the gift of
Lillian and James Burgunder, Baltimore
- BMA 1995.47
-
-
- RAYMOND STETH (American,
191 1997)
- Boys (Street Scene in Philadelphia), n.d.
- Lithograph
- Overall: 17 x 20 3/4 in. (43.2 x 52.7 cm.)
- Collection of the James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan
State University, Baltimore, Maryland
-
-
- HENRY OSSAWA TANNER (American,
1859-1937)
- The Building of the Pyramids, c.1885
- Oil on canvas
- Frame: 18 3/4 x 26 5/8 in. (47.6 x 67.6 cm.)
- Lent by Peter and Elizabeth Moser
-
- Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner, 1897
- Oil on canvas
- 16-1/8 x 11-3/4 in. (41 x 29.8 cm.); framed: 18-1/4 x
13 in. (46.4 x 33 cm.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Partial and Promised Gift
of Eddie C. Brown, C. Sylvia Brown, and their Children, Tonya Y. Brown
Ingersol and Jennifer L. Brown, Baltimore, BMA 2002.561
-
- Christ Learning to Read, c.
1911
- Oil on canvas
- Unframed: 52 x 41 in. (132.1 x 104.1 cm.)
- Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of
the Des Moines Association of Fine Arts
-
- The Disciples See Christ Walking on the Water, c. 1907
- Oil on canvas
- Unframed: 51 1/2 x 42 in. (130.8 x 106.7 cm.)
- Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of
the Des Moines Association of Fine Arts, 1921.1
-
- Le Touquet, c. 1910
- Oil on canvas
- Unframed: 36 1/4 x 28 3/4 in. (92.1 x 73 cm.)
- Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Gift of
Florence L. Carpenter, 1941.5
-
- Near East Scene, c. 1910
- Oil on canvas
- Unframed: 28 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. (73 x 59.7 cm.)
- Des Moines Art Center Permanent Collections; Bequest
of Edith King Pearson, 1964.76
-
- DOX THRASH (American, 1892-1965)
- Glory Be!, c. 1941-42
- Carborundum mezzotint and etching
- Plate: 189 x 251 mm. (7 7/16 x 9 7/8 in.) Sheet: 254
x 325 mm. (10 x 12 13/16 in.)
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchase with exchange funds
from the Edward Joseph Gallagher III Memorial Collection, BMA 2005.129
-
- Griffin Hills, n.d.
- Watercolor, over graphite
- 21 x 28 in.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Presented to The Baltimore
Museum of Art, November 14, 1941, on behalf of the colored citizens of
Baltimore, through offices of the Art Committee of the Women's Cooperative
Civic League of Baltimore. The following persons contributed to the gift:
Willard W. Allen; William Anderson; Courtland L. Brown; Marse O. Calloway;
Mrs. R. Garland Chissell; Dr. John R. Coasey; Coppin Teachers College,
Demonstration School; William B. Dixon; Dr. Mason A. Hawkins; Dr. I. Bradshaw
Higgins; Dr. D.O.W. Holmes; Dr. Robert L. Jackson; Mr. and Mrs. J. Logan
Jenkins, Jr.; Dr. Y. Henderson Kerr; Mollie L. Killion; Edward S. Lewis;
William H. McAbee; George W. McMechen; Dr. and Mrs. George B. Murphy; Marion
S. Pollett; Furman L. Templeton; Rev. C.J. Trigg; Lillian H. Trusty; Dr.
H. Maceo Williams; Dr. Isaac H. Young, BMA 1942.35
-
-
- JAMES VAN DER ZEE (American,
1886-1983)
- Atlantic City, 1930 negative,
printed 1974
- Gelatin silver print
- 164 x 102 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Saidie A. May Bequest Fund,
BMA 1975.22.14
-
- Couple, Harlem, 1932 negative,
printed 1974
- Gelatin silver print
- Sheet: 189 x 239 mm.
- The Baltimore Museum of Art: Saidie A. May Bequest Fund,
BMA 1975.22.16
-