'Henry Ossawa Tanner And His Influence In America'

BALTIMORE, MD.

:Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), America's finest black artist before Jacob Lawrence and the first African American painter to gain international acclaim, spent most of his life as an expatriate in France. After early training in the United States and experiments in landscapes, portraits and scenes of black life, he moved to Europe, where he focused on religious and Middle Eastern paintings inspired by extensive travels in that region. Kindly and generous, he played host to and gave advice to a steady stream of young American artists of all races who visited him in France.

While African American artists who followed Tanner in the Twentieth Century lived in different social, political and artistic times, his art and example inspired them in their search for racial and artistic identity. These followers, who admired Tanner's success and independence, had to wrestle with their own difficult choices of style and subject matter.

Exploring these facets of Tanner's career, the Baltimore Museum of Art has mounted two exhibitions this year: "Henry Ossawa Tanner and the Lure of Paris," seen this winter and spring, and "Henry Ossawa Tanner and His Influence in America," on view through November 26. Both are guest curated by Dr James Smalls, associate professor of art history and theory at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

The current show features a half-dozen Tanner canvases, along with several by French artists who influenced him and about 40 works by significant Twentieth Century African American artists. With the help of an illustrated brochure, the exhibition offers valuable insights into an important figure in our art history and those who followed him.

Born in Pittsburgh into the family of Bishop Benjamin Tucker Tanner of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), young Henry grew up in Washington, D.C., where the family lived a few hundred yards from today's National Gallery of Art, and in Philadelphia. Under his father's guidance, Tanner became well-versed in the Bible and theology, knowledge that motivated his later decision to paint religious subjects.

Bishop Tanner's wide cultural interests encouraged the future artist to become familiar with such African American painters as Joshua Johnson, Robert Duncanson and Edward M. Bannister and sculptor Edmonia Lewis. They became role models as he pursued his career.

Tanner's dark, somber and perceptive portrait of his father, painted in 1897, captures the distinguished clergyman's piety, depth and determination. The dark palette, strong modeling and deft use of light suggest the young painter's familiarity with Dutch Master Rembrandt's portraiture style. Moreover, as art historian Oliver W. Larkin observed, this likeness "had something of [his teacher Thomas] Eakins' keen penetration of character." Tanner also executed a touching portrait of his pensive mother.