Artist

Henry Ossawa Tanner

born Pittsburgh, PA 1859-died Paris, France 1937
Media - tanner_henry_ossawa.jpg - 90551
Courtesy Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Also known as
  • H. O. Tanner
  • Henry O. Tanner
Born
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
Died
Paris, France
Active in
  • Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
  • Trepied, France
Biography

Working in France after 1891, Henry Ossawa Tanner achieved an international reputation largely through his religious paintings. Their deep spirituality reflects Tanner's upbringing as a minister's son as well as the influence of his visits to the Holy Land after 1897.

Head bent, gaze intent, hands clasped, The Savior [SAAM, 1983.95.191] is absorbed in contemplation or prayer. The circumstances of the solitary vigil are ambiguous. Has Tanner chosen a particular moment on the mountain, in the Garden of Gethsemane, or just before the Crucifixion? Or has he treated instead the very act of prayer as a means to salvation? Whatever the context, Tanner presents Christ as a man of humble origin rather than as a transcendent, godlike figure. His carefully delineated features and bowed posture create the psychological penetration of a portrait.

Based on one of his sketches of Near Eastern men, Tanner's study conveys Christ's timeless humanity, while its sensitivity and strong modeling reveal the artist's admiration for the portraits of his teacher, Thomas Eakins.

An expressive realism characterizes The Savior, reflecting Tanner's mounting interest in the work of French Symbolist painters at the turn of the century. The painting's mottled browns and beiges derive from his training in the French academic tradition; influenced by the Impressionists' light and color, he later abandoned his subdued palette.

Although Tanner remained active until 1936, he avoided avant-garde developments after 1900. Nor did he align his expressive style with the efforts of African-American artists during the Harlem Renaissance; believing that he could not fulfill his artistic potential while fighting discrimination in America, he moved to Paris in 1891. Nonetheless, Tanner's universal subject matter and the international dimensions of his career provided inspiration for future African-American artists.

Lynda Roscoe Hartigan African-American Art: 19th and 20th-Century Selections (brochure. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art)

Works by this artist (67 items)

Henry Ossawa Tanner, Head of a Jew in Palestine, 1899, reworked ca. 1918-1920, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins, 1983.95.189
Head of a Jew in Palestine
Date1899, reworked ca. 1918-1920
oil on canvas
On view
Henry Ossawa Tanner, Head of a Woman in Jerusalem, n.d., oil on canvas mounted on cardboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins, 1983.95.194
Head of a Woman in Jerusalem
Daten.d.
oil on canvas mounted on cardboard
On view
Henry Ossawa Tanner, Country Road in France, n.d., oil on canvas mounted on wood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins, 1983.95.206
Country Road in France
Daten.d.
oil on canvas mounted on wood
On view
Henry Ossawa Tanner, The Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco), ca. 1930, oil on fiberboard, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins, 1983.95.198
The Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco)
Dateca. 1930
oil on fiberboard
On view

Exhibitions

Media - 1967.59.1118 - SAAM-1967.59.1118_1 - 2924
Artworks by African Americans from the Collection
August 31, 2016February 28, 2017
In celebration of the 2016 Grand Opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, SAAM will display 184 of its most important artworks by African Americans.

Related Books

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African American Masters: Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
African American Masters focuses on black artists whose efforts in the twentieth century demonstrate their command of mainstream traditions as well as the open assertion and exploration of their dual heritage. Many—like Sargent Johnson, Lois Mailou Jones, James Porter, and William H. Johnson—responded in the 1930s and 1940s to Alain Locke's call for an art of the “New Negro” and explored the social and narrative aspects of African or African American sources. Others—Henry Ossawa Tanner, Beauford Delaney, and Norman Lewis—embraced broader themes or the modernist challenges of form and color. Contemporary artists—from Betye Saar and Mel Edwards to Renée Stout and Whitfield Lovell—have mined sources as varied as the autobiographical and the international. Horace Pippin and Purvis Young, as self-taught artists, tapped the spiritual and social underpinnings of their communities. Portraits and documentary images have dominated the subject matter of modern black photographers. James VanDerZee and Roland Freeman epitomize those photographers who have chosen the people and environment of their own neighborhoods as their subjects. Others, foremost among them Roy DeCarava and Gordon Parks, have sought out communities or traditions of the larger African American society.
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The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Gilded Age: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum commemorates Treasures to Go, a series of eight exhibitions from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, touring the nation through 2002. The Principal Financial Group is a proud partner in presenting these treasures to the American people.