My Friend Henry
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons Media
I first met Henry because of a crumpled wad of paper. The year was 1999 and at 18 years of age, I was a spur-of-the-moment substitute Sunday school teacher. It was a pleasure to fill in during the regular teacher's absence but no one present knew exactly what to expect; least of all, me. However, the absence of expectations made them pretty easy to meet. Despite a student-led rumpus, all major incidents were admirably avoided.
When the bell rang and the children scattered, I encountered a new acquaintance. Though our meeting was not in person, I was soon to learn that his name was Henry. Midst resetting toppled chairs and righting the room from the morning’s adventures, a face looked up at me from a wad of paper on the floor. A discarded take-home paper had been left behind. Smoothing out the David C. Cook publication, I read the story of an artist named Henry Ossawa Tanner.
A friend was made that day and I can’t help but believe that there was irony in the way I found him. Though often cast aside during his life because of race, circumstances or subject matter, his was not a wasted life. Rather, he was one that sought the purposes of his Creator. His story inspires me. In fact, I still have that smoothed-out wad of paper in my files. Perhaps now is the right time to pull it out and introduce Henry to a few new friends.
A Providential Backdrop
A renowned artist, Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 21, 1859. Though perhaps lesser known to modern art viewers than Jacob Lawrence or Jean-Michael Basquiat, Henry Ossawa Tanner was the first African-American visual artist to receive international acclaim. But it wasn’t an easy journey. Today we remember his remarkable perseverance and his legacy as an artist, African-American, Pennsylvanian, and believer in Jesus Christ.
If giftedness were linked to likeliness, the works of Henry’s hands may never have been known. But God had a different plan. Born six years prior to the end of the American Civil War, Tanner was the son of a minister father and a mother who, by way of the underground railroad, found freedom following a life of oppression in the South.
Early in life, his parents relocated their family to the other side of the state. New opportunities were presented to them and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, became the providential backdrop for a story in the making. At a time when the church was one of the few places a black man could find standing and exercise leadership, Bishop Tanner and his family lived comfortably pursuing ministry. Here they associated closely with the likes of Booker T. Washington. Henry was afforded a liberal education at the Robert Vaux School, one of the few African-American schools in the United States to offer such an opportunity. It was also here that he first observed an artist at work while walking through a local park with his father. Henry’s imagination came alive and he promptly borrowed fifteen cents from his mother to buy brushes and paint.
While the family’s appreciation of freedom was forged by experience, Henry’s dreams of being an artist were not initially encouraged. His father especially objected out of concern. Instead, he was apprenticed to a family friend at a flour mill. Given his weak health and overextended by strenuous working conditions, Henry became seriously ill. Though fearful for what life may hold for their son, Henry’s parents relinquished their objections and encouraged his artistic gifts during a period of recuperation. Upon recovery his resolve was stronger then ever and his mind firmly made up. He would be a professional artist. This was God’s call for him… but it wouldn’t be an easy road.
His teen years consisted of considerable self-study; painting and drawing filling every spare moment. In 1879, at the age of 20, Henry enrolled as a student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The only black student, he was befriended and became a personal favorite of a new professor (and somewhat controversial artist), Thomas Eakins. In fact, Tanner is one of only a few students whose portrait Eakin ever committed to canvas.
God’s Plan & God’s Provision
To be a respected American artist during this era, one was expected to spend time abroad. However, the cost proved insurmountable for Henry. In order to finance his journey, Tanner would travel South in search of work. His journey would take him to North Carolina and Georgia. Though these efforts provided new opportunities which included selling his drawings, owning a photography studio, and teaching art classes at Clark University (Atlanta, Georgia), Henry’s efforts were largely profitless. Yet he still hoped to make a go of his art. A white patron couple from Atlanta, Bishop and Mrs. Joseph Crane Hartzell, arranged for him to present a one-man exhibit in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the fall of 1890. However, when the show closed not a single painting had sold. But Henry knew that being a professional artist was God’s plan for him and that God would need to provide. And provide, God did! Believing in Henry and God’s call on his life, the Hartzells purchased the entire collection. Their patronage made it possible for Henry to finally make his voyage across the sea.
Tanner relocated to France in 1891 and enrolled as a student at the Academie Julien. He would progress as a student of instructors Jean Paul Laurens and Jean Joseph Benjamin-Constant. The artist community he discovered in his new home was a delight to Henry and he was encouraged by a decreased presence of racism. He became an active member of the American art clubs in Paris and enjoyed discussing new ideas with his fellow artists.
Still Henry’s personal faith anchored him amid his professional training and provided inspiration for his artistic creations. The love of the Bible his parents had instilled in him remained. In fact he would go on to express his responsibility as both a Christian and an artist by saying, “I will preach with my brush.”
In 1895, Tanner combined his loves of faith and art by creating a monumental painting called Daniel in the Lion’s Den. This piece was entered in the Paris Salon and won a prestigious honorable mention.
Two years later the well-known department store owner and patron of the arts, Lewis Rodman Wanamaker, so impressed by Tanner's tales from Scripture, financially sponsored a trip for him to the Holy Land. This experience would further encourage his depictions of biblical themes.
Before leaving for this adventure, he completed another biblical piece, Resurrection of Lazarus. This piece opened several new doors for Tanner upon his return. It won the third class medal at the Paris Salon and was purchased for exhibition at the Luxembourg Gallery by the French government. This was a huge achievement! The French government had only purchased the work of two other American artists up to that point. Tanner would be the first African-American to have his work acquired by the French authorities. Eventually Resurrection of Lazarus would move to a more prestigious home within the collection of the Louvre museum.
Life, Art, & Legacy
In 1899, Henry married Jessie Olssen, a white Swedish-born singer. The common reactions to their mixed-marriage and the stigma associated with the birth of their son, Jesse Ossawa, encouraged the couple’s decision to make France their country of residence. There they would experience less societal judgement and would seek to create a supportive home. Biographer Marcia Mathews recorded that, "Tanner's son Jesse remembered that The Good Shepherd was his father's favorite subject” - Indeed, it was a subject Tanner would paint multiple times in different ways - "The artist believed that '...we need God to guide us.'"
Henry Ossawa Tanner’s choice of home, style and subject matter insulated him from many avant-garde developments of the 1900s. His work would be geographically separated from the influences of other African-American styles emerging during the Harlem Renaissance. While winning countless awards for his work (silver medal at the Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1900; silver medal at the Pan-American Exposition, Buffalo, 1904; silver medal at the St. Louis Exposition, 1904) and becoming the first internationally acclaimed African-American artist, Tanner would begin to fade out of public view.
In 1914, Eunice Tietjens covered Tanner's artistic journey in a newspaper article she wrote. Henry responded by sending her a three page handwritten letter; a portion of his response dealing specifically with the issue of racism and his displacement in a foreign country. Referencing her article, he wrote, "You say 'In his personal life Mr. T. has had many things to contend with. Ill-health, poverty, race, prejudice, always strong against a negro'... True - This condition has driven me out of the country… & while I cannot sing our national hymn… still deep down in my heart I love it & am sometimes very sad that I cannot live where my heart is."
Though the USA ceased to be his country of residence, Henry's art and legacy would still ripple on his native shores. While many American artists studying in Europe became copies of European method and technique, he painted according to his own ideas; using his own style. This individuality helped define an American form of painting. In 1927, he was inducted as a member of the American National Academy. Yet still, America wasn't fully ready to claim him as their own. Rather, than an "American artist," he was more commonly referred to as a "Negro artist."
Gone But Not Forgotten
Henry Ossawa Tanner died on May 25, 1937, in Paris, France. He would be largely forgotten after his demise; unfortunately tossed away from collective memory. Or at least for a time.
Several years later the world would begin to recall the genius of his art. The Smithsonian Institution led the way in 1969 by choosing to stage an exhibition of his paintings. Tanner became even more of a household name when the United States Postal Service issued a stamp heralding him as an "American artist" on September 10, 1973. His boyhood home would remember their native son once more when the Philadelphia Museum of Art hosted a show of his work in 1991. Subsequently, these examples would continue to be followed by other museums. Henry Ossawa Tanner would finally be acknowledged as a great artist in his country, the country of his heart, and the beauty of Scripture, preached with his brush, would grace the walls of America's chapels of art.
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Ref:
“Henry Ossawa Tanner - Paintings, Art & Quotes.” Accessed 15 February 2021. biography.com/artist/henry-ossawa-tanner
Mathews, Marcia M. Henry Ossawa Tanner: American Artist. Chicago: University of Chicago,1969.
Kirwin, Liza and Jason Lord. Artists in their Studios: Images from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art. New York: Collins Design, 2007. 32.
