HENRY OSSAWA TANNER (1859-1937)

Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in Pittsburg Pennsylvania, on June 21, 1859. He was the first of nine born into the home of an affluent African American family. His father, Benjamin Tucker Tanner, was a Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Pittsburg. Henry’s mother, Sarah Miller Tanner, was a former slave who was liberated through the Underground Railroad and later worked as a teacher. When Tanner was thirteen the family moved to Philadelphia, and it was there that his love of art began to grow. At the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, Tanner was exposed to the art and cultural influence of nearly 37 different countries; because of this, Tanner became even more intent upon his artistic pursuit.

His father hoped that Henry would some day become a minister and follow in his footsteps. However, art was certainly not Benjamin Tanner’s idea of a viable discipline. In hopes of distracting Henry from art and teaching him the value of “real work,” his father got him a job at the local flourmill. However, because of the physically demanding work, the job proved to be detrimental to Henrys’ health. His health, which caused him trouble throughout his life, forced him to pursue less strenuous activities, and much to Henry’s delight, art was a perfect enterprise.

Vested with the somewhat reluctant support of his father, Henry enrolled in the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art in 1880. There, he studied under Thomas Eakins (1844-1916) who had an enormous amount of influence on Henry, not only in the development of his style but also in his pursuit of art itself. He became an illustrator for the Harper Brothers publishing company. It was one of the few businesses willing to utilize the talents of African American artists and writers. Despite the small success he had at Harper Brothers as an African American at the turn of the century, it was difficult for him to receive much encouragement to pursue a career as an artist. Aside from this disheartening fact, Henry’s good friend Eakins always championed for minorities, and even women, to boldly strive towards art making.

Even with his passion and talent, Henry left PAFA before graduating. Perhaps out of frustration with the struggle to develop a patronage in Philadelphia, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia in 1888. His plan was to synthesize art and business through the development of a small photography gallery. He also explored photography, which was a key element in the development of his artistic sense of composition. He even taught drawing classes at Clark College, a new university for African Americans. All his endeavors not withstanding, Henry was barely able to make enough income to support himself. Nevertheless, he did become acquainted with Bishop and Mrs. Joseph Crane Hartzel who were great admirers of his work and became some of his most supportive patrons.

He was able to sell his small floundering gallery and in the summer of 1888 he moved to Highlands, North Carolina. He found the landscape of Highlands to be a perfect inspiration for his photography, and the air of the mountains provided a needed support for his health. Both the terrain and the African Americans of the area became the subjects of his art, and later fed ideas for some of his more developed works. Henry’s good friend Joseph Hartzel helped arrange a small exhibition in Cincinnati in 1890. Hartzel ended up purchasing the entire collection from Henry giving him the means to go abroad, a dream he had held from some time.

Absorbing the artistic richness of many different European countries, Henry eventually landed in Paris. He was so taken by the inspirational spirit of the city, and its tolerance and cosmopolitan flavor, that he eventually made it his home. It was here that he began to study under Benjamin Constant (1845-1902) and Jean-Paul Laurens, who were respected academic painters. He spent a good deal of time with traditional figure studies and classical techniques; however, Henry was also encouraged to experiment with his paint and to discover his own style. Constant, who had a very painterly and robust style, greatly influenced Henry and his technique.

As Henry continued to develop his style and technique, he also became increasingly concerned with the position of African Americans and the way in which they were depicted. In 1893, he completed The Banjo Lesson, which caught the attention of quite a few people because of its unusual use of color and the noble depiction of the African American. Also in that same year, he delivered a paper on black artists at the Columbian Exposition. Henry painted a handful of paintings with this same edge of social commentary on the beastly depiction of African Americans in art and in the media. Henry sought to show his people as noble, honest humans, working and living noble and honest lives.

Despite the positive response he received from working with African American subjects, Henry began to paint more religiously themed art. His religious themes and beautiful style and technique drew the attention of Rodman Wanamaker, a “second Benjamin Franklin” and an avid supporter of the arts, who helped Henry travel to the Holy land to gather inspiration and images for more work.

In 1898, Henry married Jessie Macauley Olssen, a white singer from California whom he met while living in Paris. They had a son, Jesse Ossawa, and after a few trips to New York and Philadelphia they made Paris their home. However happy Henry was domestically, the tension and eventual outbreak of the First World War weighed heavily upon his soul. He joined the American Red Cross and served in France to support the efforts for healing in the midst of such destruction. Partly because of his work for the war and partly because of his international fame as an artist who had “arrived,” Henry was awarded the prestigious position of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by the French government. Later in 1927, he was inducted in to the National Academy of Design, and was in fact the first African American to enjoy a full membership.

In the later part of Henry’s career, he was able to paint less and less, but despite the meager quantity of work, the quality seemed to only improve. His health began to slip and he was able to travel less and less. He died in his beloved home in Paris on May 25, 1937. Even after his death he continued to be an inspiration and encouragement to African American artists everywhere. Later in 1969, the Smithsonian exhibited many of his works and Henry Ossawa Tanner became the first artist of African American descent to have a major solo exhibition in the United States. In 1996, his work Sand Dunes at Sunset was bought by the White House and was the first piece by an African American artist to join the collection.