Episode #63: The Coolest Artists You Don't Know: Henry O. Tanner (Season 7, Episode 3)

May 4, 2020 Jennifer Dasal

ARTCURIOUS: Stories of the Unexpected, Slightly Odd, and Strangely Wonderful in Art History is available for preorder now! Coming September 15, 2020 from Penguin Books.

For most Americans, there’s a list of arts that they might be able to rattle off if pressed to name them off the top of their heads. Picasso. Michelangelo. Leonardo da Vinci. Name recognition does go a long way, but such lists also highlight what many of us don’t know-- a huge treasure trove of talented artists from decades or centuries past that might not be household names, but still have created incredible additions to the story of art. It’s not a surprise that many of these individuals represent the more diverse side of things, too-- women, people of color, different spheres of the social or sexual spectrum.

This season on the ArtCurious podcast, we’re covering the coolest artists you don’t know. This week: Henry O. Tanner.

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Episode Credits

Production and Editing by Kaboonki. Theme music by Alex Davis. Social media assistance by Emily Crockett and Caroline Haller. Additional writing and research by Adria Gunter.

ArtCurious is sponsored by Anchorlight, an interdisciplinary creative space, founded with the intent of fostering artists, designers, and craftspeople at varying stages of their development. Home to artist studios, residency opportunities, and exhibition space Anchorlight encourages mentorship and the cross-pollination of skills among creatives in the Triangle.

Additional music credits

Recommended Reading

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Links and further resources

Henry O. Tanner, exhibition sub-site from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Will South, “A Missing Question Mark: The Unknown Henry Ossawa Tanner,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, vol. 8. issue 2 (Autumn 2009).

Judith Wilson, “Lifting ‘The Veil’: Henry O. Tanner’s The Banjo Lesson and The Thankful Poor,” Contributions in Black Studies: A Journal of African and Afro-American Studies, volume 9, article 4.

Farisa Khalid, "Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson," in Smarthistory, September 9, 2016, accessed January 10, 2020, https://smarthistory.org/tanner-banjo/.

Episode Transcript

How would you define a cool artist? It’s pretty subjective, don’t you think? What’s cool to me may be boring to you. And I’ll admit that for this season of ArtCurious, I’m definitely the one making the call here-- it’s my prerogative as the host, I suppose, that I get to talk about the stuff I find interesting...or curious. For me, many of the artists that are part of our discussion over these next few months aren’t included because I think that their art is the BEST EVER-- and probably isn’t something that I’d choose to hang on my own wall if we have a chance. No, for me, the cool factor is all about highlighting artists who maybe don’t get as much cred today as they should, ones who might get overlooked when you’re bombarded with the big-names that seam to swirl on everyone’s tongues. You know the drill-- it’s all Picasso, and Warhol, and Dali, and Monet, and blah di blah di blah… not that I don’t love those guys too, but it’s nice to shine the light on others for a change of pace. Especially when those artists are still, perhaps quietly, considered some of the most important artists from our own country.

Some people think that visual art is dry, boring, lifeless. But the stories behind those paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs are weirder, crazier, or more fun than you can imagine. In season seven, we’re uncovering the coolest artists you don’t know, and today, we’re looking at the life of Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first African American artist to receive true international acclaim in his lifetime. This is the ArtCurious Podcast, exploring the unexpected, the slightly odd, and the strangely wonderful in Art History. I'm Jennifer Dasal.

Now, first thing’s first: for this “coolest artists you don’t know” season, I’ve gotta admit two things-- one is that for many of you listeners who are already pretty engaged in art and art history, a good number of these artists will be familiar to you already. And a second point--some of them, like Henry Ossawa Tanner, aren’t little-known or minor artists either. But to the everyday listener-- maybe someone who, like me, once upon a time, didn’t think art was very interesting at all (and yeah, that was me about 20 years ago)-- then Tanner’s name doesn’t have the same kind of recognition that Picasso or Kahlo or Monet warrant. Nevertheless, he was an important artist, and continues to be so, an artist who is frequently atop many American museums’ lists of most coveted potential acquisitions.

Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 21, 1859, to Reverend Benjamin Tucker Tanner, a Bishop of the African Methodist Church, and Sarah Tanner, a former slave who escaped captivity via the Underground Railroad. The first few years were a little unstable for little Henry, as he and his family moved several times due to his father’s constant reassignment to several churches and schools-- a preacher’s life, especially at that time, was typically in flux. Finally, in 1868, when Henry was nine years old, the Tanner family opted to settle long-term in Philadelphia. And it was in Philadelphia where inspiration struck for the very first time. While on a casual walk through a park with his father one day, Tanner came across a man painting a landscape, and that was it. Watching the man work, casually dabbing at his canvas, changed Henry’s life course--because it was in that instant that he knew he wanted to become an artist.

From then on, Tanner jumped into an intense amount of self-education, spending much of his free time drawing, painting, and going to visit Philadelphia’s art galleries. He was so inspired and elated by what he experienced, by what he saw, but his parents didn’t really feel the same way. They-- especially old Papa Tanner--discouraged his burgeoning interests because, well, ya know, a career in art didn’t seem promising from a finance and job security standpoint. Oh, how little things change. However, their disapproval did not stop Henry-- if anything, it motivated him to work harder, study more, and to become admitted to one of the best art schools in the nation--which he was. In 1879, he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts-- a huge coup for any art student, but even bigger in Henry’s case because he was one of the first African-American students to be admitted. Ever. Remember that this was less than two decades after the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery-- and previous to this time, Tanner had been denied access to many art apprenticeships because some were hesitant to accept an African-American studio assistant or apprentice. We’ll be coming back to Tanner’s experiences with racism in a moment. Suffice to say, though, that the PAFA wanted him, and he was given the opportunity to work with an incredible artist and teacher-- Thomas Eakins, the renowned painter whom we discussed in Season 5 of the ArtCurious Podcast as part of our yearlong “Shock Art” series-- that’s episode #48 if you want to go back and take a listen.

Tanner thrived under Eakins’s tutelage. Eakins was innovative in his methods of portraying human anatomy, encouraging both study from the nude model (of both sexes, gasp!) and even the dissection of corpses to foster a better understanding of the human body (hence, Eakins’s most famous work, The Gross Clinic, which we discussed previously on the show). His methods--and his positive and inspiring encouragement of his students-- made Eakins very popular, and Tanner loved working with him, as many others did. What was really special, though, was that Eakins felt similarly about Tanner-- Henry became one of his favorite students and the two became good friends-- so much so that twenty years after they met, Eakins went on to paint a portrait of Henry Ossawa Tanner. That’s quite a testament to their friendship-- and probably to Tanner’s own artistic status by that point. But we’re getting a bit ahead of our story here.

Though Henry Tanner did very well at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, he didn’t end up graduating. He actually ended up moving away from Philadelphia, primarily because of… you guessed it… racism. Even though Pennsylvania is a northern state and thus was part of the union during the Civil War, it nevertheless was deeply connected to the American South because of several prominent farming and commercial families that still centered their businesses in the South; that meant that there was some definite unfriendly vibes towards African-Americans in the air. Making matters worse was the major influx of African-Americans who moved north after the abolition of slavery, which meant that many cities in the Union were suddenly full of black folks-- and white immigrants from European countries, who were already having a difficult time adjusting to American life, were further displeased that African-Americans were additional competition for good jobs. All of this combined into a poisonous atmosphere for many, Tanner included. In his autobiography, The Story of an Artist's Life, Tanner elegantly but excruciatingly shares his experience, writing, “I was extremely timid and to be made to feel that I was not wanted, although in a place where I had every right to be, even months afterwards caused me sometimes weeks of pain. Every time any one of these disagreeable incidents came into my mind, my heart sank, and I was anew tortured by the thought of what I had endured, almost as much as the incident itself.” It is probable that this is why Tanner ended up leaving the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and leaving Pennsylvania altogether in 1889.

Given his experiences, it’s not surprising that Henry Tanner wanted to hightail it out of PA. He also wanted to hightail it out of the United States entirely, with high hopes of going to Paris, which at the time was all the rage with American artists who wanted to experience Impressionism and Post-Impressionism firsthand. Plus, Tanner was not only depleted from the racism that plagued America, but sadly, it plagued the American art world, too. Think about representation alone here: at this time (and for much too long after), African-Americans were often portrayed either as caricatures with grossly exaggerated features or as figures trapped in the despairs of poverty - there was little to no variation in how they were represented, which Tanner (and African-Americans in general) found both insulting and untrue. He yearned to live and work in Europe, which to him seemed to be a far more liberal, accepting environment.

But Tanner needed to save up a little money first. He settled first in Atlanta and opened a photography studio, but unfortunately, due to weak sales and unstable finances, he was unable to keep up with the operations, and was forced to sell the business. Around this time, though, there was a bright spot on the horizon. During this period, he met Reverend Joseph Crane Hartzell, a Bishop of the African Methodist Church, just like his father had been. Hartzell took a shine to Tanner, and Tanner's paintings, so he arranged for Tanner to teach drawing at Clark University, an all-black college, so his employment options, post-gallery, were finally looking up. Even better, Hartzell arranged for Tanner to have an exhibition of his work in Cincinnati. Although none of the works sold during the run of the exhibition, there was, again, another wonderful opportunity: Hartzell and his wife bought them all, all the Cincinnati paintings, thus providing Henry Tanner with enough money to finally pursue his dreams of going to Europe.

That’s coming up next, right after this break-- stay with us.

Welcome back to ArtCurious.

Henry Ossawa Tanner left for Paris in 1891 and enrolled in the Académie Julian, the famed private art school that fostered the education of many from around the world, including a hearty slew of American art students, including, at various times, Cecilia Beaux, Thomas Hart Benton, Childe Hassam, and John Singer Sargent, among many, many others. And there, he flourished. His instructors, Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant, guided him in his efforts, as did Tanner’s ongoing self-study at places like the Louvre, where he was especially impressed by Gustave Courbet’s depictions of everyday people. This was huge to Tanner, who wanted to do the same-- to elevate the ordinary into an extraordinary depiction, and he wanted to do so, especially, for portrayal of the black body. We can easily trace a line from Tanner’s own experiences with racism, as well as the stereotypical and unfavorable representation of African Americans in the art world during that period, all the way to his first major work-- which is perhaps his most famous work of art. The Banjo Lesson, a 1893 painting depicts an elderly, African-American man teaching a young boy, presumably his grandson, how to play the titular instrument. This precious and human interaction between two generations provides a more positive and accurate depiction of an African-American familial experience. The work itself is tender, sensitive, painted in muted, neutral tones and with a glowing warmth. Together, the older man and the young boy are immersed in their efforts, oblivious to the gaze of us, the viewers, as they turn towards one another and their musical instrument. It’s beautiful. It’s a work that instills me with a sense of calm, a feeling of joy and love-- and what a nice change that must have been, to see African-Americans represented in such an ordinary way-- ordinary in the most blissful, positive sense. And considering its subject matter was, at that time, so closely tied to those stereotypes--in particular the African-American minstrel, who would often be shown playing the banjo in other 19th century scenes-- this was a revelation, a gentle shaking of the tree by an artist who quickly began to establish himself as the preeminent African-American artist of his generation, and the first black artist to attain international recognition during his own lifetime.

What’s interesting about The Banjo Lesson, and its rightfully hallowed place within Tanner’s artistic output, is that this kind of subject matter was a focus of the artist’s for only a brief window of time, and yet it has become among his most lauded works. For the majority of his career, in fact, Tanner became famous for his religious works, primarily focusing on Christianity. In 1896, his painting, Daniel in the Lion’s Den--portraying a most dramatic moment in the life of Daniel, the Old Testament biblical figure, a subject matter long of interest to visual artists, and one which seemingly received a spike of renewed interest in the late 19th century-- was awarded with an honorable mention at that year’s Salon, the yearly art event that was, for many decades, the most prestigious art showing in France, and possibly in all of Europe. With this commendation, Tanner had a revelation of his own: he realized that religion was a more palatable subject for larger audiences. As a result, he set aside works that fit what he called the “Negro-genre” and dove wholeheartedly into religious scenes instead. Many art historians and scholars today find this shift in subject matter regrettable on Tanner’s part, for had he continued with it, he would have made far more of a lasting impression on 20th-century African-American portraiture. But as an African-American artist during that era, his success almost entirely depended on the patronage of white Americans and Europeans, and it was the religious genre that captured their attention the most.

Not that Tanner’s concern about prejudice and the struggle for racial equality took a back seat, just because his subject matter shifted. After the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People-- the NAACP for short--was founded in 1909, Tanner joined and became a loyal contributor, even while living abroad. He was also close friends with early-generation-Civil Rights leaders James Weldon Johnson, W.E.B. DuBois, and Booker T. Washington, who visited him in Paris in 1899 and even sat for a portrait. Any opportunity and/or project that could help advance young African-American artists, Tanner was ready to assist however he could.

Still, many historians have lamented the shift from the naturalistic portrayal of African-Americans as protagonists in Henry O. Tanner’s artwork because it is probably true that he could have gone on to even greater achievements in racial parity in the visual arts. Certainly it may have helped him stand out more in our history books. But Tanner was right on in his instincts to switch over to something more palatable because, let’s be honest-- his patrons (just as many art patrons now are) were wealthy white folks. They were the ones with the money, the ones who could buy his art and support him. And it worked. It was indeed a good decision for him, from a financial and critical standpoint, at least. In 1896-- the same year he was celebrated for Daniel in the Lion’s Den, he painted yet another super-dramatic Biblical scene, this time from the New Testament: The Resurrection of Lazarus. And just as with Daniel in the Lion’s Den, this painting was lauded from here to eternity (no pun intended). Tanner, it seems, had made it, officially rising to the upper echelons of the artistic elite, and it caught the attention of many. Most notably, Tanner ended up in the sights of a man named Rodman Wanamaker, a Philadelphia department store magnate and patron of the arts. A devout Christian, Wanamaker believed that a visit to the Middle East was a must for anyone depicting Biblical events in the visual arts, and thus he approached Henry Tanner with a remarkable proposal: an all expenses-paid trip for Tanner to the Middle East. And because Tanner was no dummy, he accepted the offer. So in the late 1890s, he traveled to Palestine, where he not only visited numerous holy sites central to both the Christian and Muslim faiths, but also keenly studied the landscape and people of the region, something which served him well throughout the rest of his career as he endeavored to stay devoted to an accurate sense of realism. Again, it treated him very well, and in 1923 he was awarded what he would go on to call his life’s greatest achievement: he was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest national order of merit. He died in Paris in 1937 at the age of 77.

Henry Ossawa Tanner was not only highly decorated and lauded during his lifetime, but his influence can be found in those who followed in his footsteps, including none other than Norman Rockwell, whose own illustrations have referenced some Tanner imagery, particularly his great The Banjo Lesson. And the realization of his legacy has remained strong-- so much so that he has one considerable contemporary honor as a creator: his 1885 painting, Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City, was the first painting by an African-American artist to have been purchased for the White House’s permanent art collection, which entered its newfound home during the Bill Clinton Administration. Its inclusion is an important commentary: here is one of the best artists of our country, not only in his own time, but now and always.

Thank you for listening to the ArtCurious Podcast. This episode was written, produced, and narrated by me, Jennifer Dasal, with additional writing and research help by Adria Gunter. Our theme music is by Alex Davis at alexdavismusic.com, our logo is by Dave Rainey at daveraineydesign.com, and social media help is by Emily Crockett and Caroline Haller. Our production and editorial services are provided by Kaboonki. Top-tier podcasts and video. Learn more at kaboonki.com. The ArtCurious Podcast is sponsored primarily by Anchorlight. Anchorlight is a creative space, founded with the intent of fostering artists, designers, and craftspeople at varying stages of their development. Home to artist studios, residency opportunities, and exhibition space Anchorlight encourages mentorship and the cross-pollination of skills among creatives in the Triangle. Please visit anchorlightraleigh.com.

The ArtCurious Podcast is also fiscally sponsored by VAE Raleigh, a 501c3 nonprofit creativity incubator. We’re a fully independent podcast, and we rely on sponsors and donations to keep us going, so if you enjoy this show and have the means, please consider giving $10 to help this show, and thank you for your kindness. And if you don’t have money to give, that’s okay! You can help our show as well by leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen-- believe me, it makes a huge difference and helps new listeners tune in. For more details about our show, including the image mentioned in this episode today, please visit our website: artcuriouspodcast.com. We’re also on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at artcuriouspod.

Check back in two weeks as we continue to explore the unexpected, the slightly odd, and the strangely wonderful in art history.