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Edited by ANNA O. MARLEY

Henry Ossawa TannerModern Spirit

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine ArtsPhiladelphia

University of California PressBerkeley · Los Angeles · London

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Foreword ,-(./- $. 0$/1!(2

Preface 3-(./- +. -$/'4"55

Acknowledgments 67(##( &. 2($5"%

Lenders to the Exhibition 68

Introduction Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit 6,(##( &. 2($5"%

PART I Henry Ossawa Tanner in the Context of Black Artists 6 Before Tanner 9,

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: Tanner and Transcendence ;8$/+!($- <. =&)"55

PART II Henry Ossawa Tanner and the Expatriate Experience 7 >e Resurrection of Lazarus from the Quartier Latin to the Musée du Luxembourg 83

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9 Pioneer and Sage: Henry Ossawa Tanner and the Interwar African American Community in Paris ,3

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; Tanner, the Pillar of Trépied ?,<"(#-+5(@-" 5"'(1"

8 Tanner and “Oriental” Africa 3?(-$/"##" 5. +!/5-'

PART III Henry Ossawa Tanner and Religious Painting, A New Testament: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Religious Discourse, and the “Lessons” of Art 6A32($+@' 0$@+"

? “I Invited the Christ Spirit to Manifest in Me”: Tanner and Symbolism 66,$&0"$* +&BB&5/#&

3 “!e Dynamo and the Virgin”: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Religious Nocturnes 6:,!C5D#" .(5(#+"

PART IV Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Style and Techniques 6A Christian Cosmopolitanism: Henry Ossawa Tanner and the Beginning of the End of Race 67,

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66 Reproduction Troubles: Tanner’s “Mothers of the Bible” for the Ladies’ Home Journal 698

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6: Pursuit of the Ideal E"ect: !e Materials and Techniques of Henry Ossawa Tanner 6;,

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Plates 68;

Chronology :,7

Selected Bibliography :3A

Contributors :38

Index :3?

6,

The son of a former slave and an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) bishop, Henry Ossawa Tanner (6?;3–637,) grew up in

Philadelphia just after the Civil War, part of an educated and cultured African American elite. It was in the sum-mer of 6?,:, the same year that the family had moved to a large eight-room home at :3A? Diamond Street in north Philadelphia, that young Tanner Frst thought about an artistic career. During a walk with his father through Fairmount Park, Tanner spied a stranger making a paint-ing of a large tree. On the spot he decided that he too would become an artist, securing Ffteen cents from his parents later that evening for his Frst purchase of “dry colors and a couple of scraggy brushes.”G

>us began a journey of discovery for the young artist that started in Philadelphia and continued in Paris, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Tangiers. Tanner went on to become a critically acclaimed and prize-winning artist in the United States and France for what contemporary critics called his “modern” and “personal” religious paint-ing. He lived a thoroughly cosmopolitan life, studying painting in Philadelphia and Paris, and, in 6?33, marry-ing a Swedish American woman from San Francisco—Jessie Macauley Olsson (6?,7–63:;)—who was training

as an opera singer in Paris. Together they raised their son, Jesse Ossawa, during the decades that Tanner was a leader of the international artists’ community of Étaples in northern France. He counted among his patrons the French government, millionaires of the Gilded Age, the AME Church, American universities, and major Amer-ican museums. >is exhibition and catalogue situate him as an American artist of international stature—contem-porary with other American expatriates such as Sargent and Whistler—who reframed genre scenes of African American life, religious art, and Orientalist painting through his innovative practices and techniques.H

>e canonical survey and American art history as a whole acknowledge Henry Ossawa Tanner as a progen-itor Fgure for and a leading inIuence on later African American artists. In Framing America: A Social History of American Art, a respected textbook, author Fran-ces Pohl devotes a section speciFcally to Tanner not in the chapter on late nineteenth-century art, or with transatlantic art of the Gilded Age, or in the section on American modernism, but as a precursor to the sec-tion on the Harlem Renaissance.J >ough Tanner was indeed an acknowledged inIuence on the practitioners of this movement, this slightly awkward placement is

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Henry Ossawa TannerModern Spirit

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Mr. Tanner is not only a biblical painter, but he has brought to modern art a new spirit.

.(#+" *!&2='&#, “American Artists in Paris,” Cosmopolitan :3, no. 6 (May 63AA): 63.

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emblematic of Tanner’s perceived role in American art history. As Kymberly Pinder has argued, when Tanner is included in surveys of American and Western art, his oeuvre is represented by one of his genre paintings of African American life, of which the artist made only two.K Exhibitions throughout the last century and major humanities scholarship acknowledge Tanner’s legacy as the undisputed patriarch of African American artistry, yet they do not go beyond this identiFcation and accord him his warranted place as a major international artist. Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit seeks to address this shortcoming by exploring the important inIuences of late nineteenth-century popular religion and the les-sons of the AME church; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) instructors, such as >omas Ea-kins; European Orientalism; modern technological and artistic developments; and World War I on Tanner’s life and work. >e present volume adds a signiFcant new dimension to the story of Tanner as a black painter struggling to make his way in a harsh world, revealing him as a modern artist whose training, intelligence, and faith equipped him to surmount the diLcult realities of his time and propelled him into a lifetime journey of personal and artistic discovery.

Tanner in America

Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Benjamin Tucker Tanner (6?7;–63:7), who was a second-generation freedman and third-generation resident of Pittsburgh, and Sarah Elizabeth Miller (6?9A–6369), who was born into slavery in Winchester, Virginia. Sarah and Benjamin met when they were students at Avery College, just outside of Pittsburgh. Benjamin went on to study at Western >eological Seminary and became an eminent minister in the AME Church. In addition to raising nine chil-dren, Sarah Tanner also helped found one of America’s Frst societies for black women, the Mite Missionary Society of the AME Church.M Henry was born in Pittsburgh on June :6, 6?;3, the Frst of the nine chil-dren. His middle name, “Ossawa, was derived from Osawatomie, the town in Kansas where in 6?;8 the white militant abolitionist John Brown launched his

antislavery campaign.”N Henry was not the only Tanner child to achieve great success: his sister Halle became a physician, and when her work took her to Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute, she became the Frst woman to pass the Alabama medical boards.O

As a teenager, Tanner attended the Roberts Vaux Consolidated School for Colored Students, which at the time was the most prestigious secondary school for black students in Philadelphia.P In these years, the Tan-ner home was said to be “the center of the black intel-lectual community of Philadelphia.”Q When the fam-ily Frst moved to Philadelphia, they lived at >ird and Pine Streets, just around the corner from the oLces of the Christian Recorder, the AME Church’s newspaper, of which Benjamin Tanner had been elected editor. Tanner graduated valedictorian of his grammar school in 6?,, and then apprenticed with a family friend in the Iour business. >is work proved too physically strenuous, and he became ill. At this juncture, his family became wholly supportive of his desire to become a professional artist, and while recovering from his illness in the Adirondack Mountains, he produced some of his earliest known works, such as Flora—a vertical landscape of pine trees under a stormy sky—and Fauna—a pendant painting of a doe and fawn foraging by a rocky mountain stream—both now in the Hampton University Gallery. Tanner had diLculty obtaining professional training in Philadel-phia due to racial discrimination. He Frst took lessons from Isaac L. Williams (6?6,–6?3;) and then was taken under the wing of the amateur artist Henry Price for a year. However, both of these white artists failed to serve as long-term mentors for the young black artist, and Tan-ner looked elsewhere to continue his professional educa-tion after his graduation from secondary school.

Tanner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 6?,3 and was one of the Frst African Americans to study there.GR As early as the 6?7As, Robert Douglass Jr. (6?A3–6??,), a noted black artist in Philadelphia, had “access” to classes at the academy and exhibited there in 6?79.GG PAFA thus has the distinction of being the Frst art museum in the United States to mount the work of an African American artist. Some scholars have taken issue with statements such as “there were virtually no African-American artists of an older generation to set an example” for the young Henry Tan-

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ner.GH Recent scholarship by Steven L. Jones has uncov-ered a long tradition of artists and artisans of African descent working in Philadelphia throughout the nine-teenth century, including Douglass, who exhibited his painting Magnanimity of a Great Artist at PAFA’s 6?,8 annual exhibition, and Douglass’s cousin David Bustill Bowser (6?:A–63AA), who painted several portraits of John Brown for Philadelphia patrons.GJ Henry Tanner wrote that Douglass was an early neighbor of the Tan-ner family and that he “used to pass and always stopped to look at his pictures in the window. I must have been very young.S.S.S. I believe that Robert Douglass’s subjects were highly classical and somewhat in the style of Ben-jamin West.”GK Additionally, Bowser’s name was often cited in the Christian Recorder, the newspaper Benja-min Tanner edited.GM Henry was also exposed to the art of Edward Mitchell Bannister (6?:?–63A6) at the 6?,8 Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia, where Bannister won the bronze medal for his painting Under the Oaks. Late in his life, Tanner wrote that seeing this painting “increased [his] boyish appreciation for [Bannister’s] talents.”GN >e young artist would have likewise seen the work of sculptor Edmonia Lewis at the Centennial. >us, because he grew up in a household that deeply valued education, he had multiple opportunities to learn from local and national artists of African American descent. >is early exposure to African American artists made Tanner aware that being black and being an artist were not mutually exclusive.

On December 9, 6?,3, Tanner began his studies at PAFA as a registered student in the antique class, where students worked from the plaster casts of clas-sical statuary. By January 9, 6??6, he was enrolled in the life class, where students sketched from live models. His instructor, >omas Eakins (6?99–6368), petitioned the academy’s Committee on Instruction on January 7A, 6??9, to admit Tanner as a free student to the class.GO As a young man, Tanner professed a desire to be a marine painter, and many of his earliest works are seascapes. As he matured, his ambition was to specialize in animal painting and to “become an American Landseer.”GP Two canvases from his early days as a student at PAFA show his engagement in animal subjects: Pomp at the Zoo (ca. 6??A; plate 7) and Boy and Sheep under a Tree (6??6; plate 9). Pomp was an old lion at the Philadelphia Zoo, where

Eakins encouraged his students to visit in order to study and draw from life. Tanner was so devoted to animal painting that he bought a sheep to serve as a model for his pastoral compositions.GQ At the time, he was also using his family as models for Fgure studies. Sister Sarah (6??6–?:; plate ;) shows the inIuence of the academy’s Fgurative tradition on his approach to portraiture.

Tanner’s Frst stab at the elevated academic genre of history painting began under the tutelage of Eakins. >e two men had a mutual respect for each other, and Eakins had a profound early inIuence on Tanner, who wrote later in life:

About this time, Mr. >omas Eakins, under whom I was studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, gave me a criticism which aided me then, and ever since; it may apply to all walks of life, I will “pass it along.” I had made a start on a study, which was not altogether bad, but very probably the best thing I had ever done. He encouraged but, instead of working to make it better, I became afraid I should destroy what I had done, and really did nothing the rest of the week. Well, he was disgusted. “What have you been doing? Get it, get it better, or get it worse. No middle ground of compromise.”HR

History and genre paintings were popular subjects for Eakins and >omas Hovenden (6?9A–6?3;), Tanner’s academy teachers. >e subject Tanner chose for his Frst foray into this ambitious genre was the legend of Andro-cles, a Roman slave who sought shelter from slavery in a lion’s cave. Androcles befriended the lion by remov-ing a thorn from the animal’s paw. Later, Androcles was captured by the Romans and sentenced to die at the hands of wild beasts in the Circus Maximus. >e beast turned out to be the lion that Androcles had healed, and the creature bowed to him as would a domesticated pet. >is touching sight inspired the Roman emperor to free both the lion and Androcles. >is subject may have held particular interest for Tanner given that his own mother had been born into slavery and brought to Pennsylvania via the Underground Railroad.

Two studies exist for this painting, Study for Andro-cles (ca. 6??;–?8; plate ,) and Lion Licking Its Paw (6??8; plate ?). >ese works hint at Tanner’s burgeoning talent,

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and it is unfortunate that he never Fnished his ambitious history painting. >e lion is portrayed with great sensi-tivity, and when one compares it to the lion Pomp, of just a few years earlier, the considerable progress Tanner made while studying at the academy is evident. His Fg-ure of the sinewy Androcles likewise reIects the hours the artist had put in. He had clearly absorbed Eakins’s lessons in gritty realism as well as scientiFc observation of human anatomy; however, Tanner claimed that the “ambitious canvas” was beyond him, and he spent all his money on models without Fnishing the picture.HG

Although Tanner received encouragement and sup-port from his teachers, including Eakins and Hovenden, evidence suggests he was discriminated against by his fel-low students. PAFA student Joseph Pennell documented an incident of racial persecution of a fellow (unnamed) student that many scholars agree was Tanner.

One night we were walking down Broad Street, he with us, when from a crowd of people of his color who were walking up the street, came a greeting “Hullo, George Washington, howse yer getting’ on wid yer White fren’s?” >en he began to assert him-self and, to cut a long story short, one night his easel was carried out into the middle of Broad Street and, though not painfully cruciFed, he was Frmly tied to it and left there. It is my only experience of my col-ored brothers in a White school; but it was enough. Curiously, there never has been a great Negro or Jew artist in the history of the world.HH

>e easel incident is documented only in Pennell’s memoirs and may have been a self-aggrandizing fab-rication of his own openly racist narrative. Tanner was not the only African American student at the academy at the time. Alfred B. Stidum was also registered there, and it is possible that he was the black artist in this story.HJ Whether the easel incident is fantasy or real-ity, it does point out the open hostility encountered by African American artists working in late nineteenth-century Philadelphia.

During his time at the academy, Tanner tried to make a living by selling “black and white drawings every month or so to New York Publishers.” HK Although he did not sell many of these, he persevered, and every once in a while he would earn forty dollars for one of them. “It Must Be My Very Star, Come Down to Brooklyn, After All” (6???; plate 3) is one extant example of this early foray into illustration. Tanner’s experimentation in the graphic arts laid the foundation for successes later in his career, Frst with a series of prints completed in the early twentieth century for Ladies Home Journal and then in the Fne-art etchings he created of North Africa and northern France in the 636As.

By the late 6??As, Tanner had given up on his dream to be an animal painter, though he would continue to depict lions for many years. In this period, the artist reFned his landscape painting practice and produced one of his most exceptional examples, Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City (ca. 6??;; plate 8). Beginning in the summer of 6?,8, Tanner spent many of his sum-

Figure 6. Alexander Harrison, !e Wave ca. 6??;. Oil on canvas, 73T U 66? in. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Joseph E. Temple Fund, 6?36.;.

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mers working in the black resort industry in Atlantic City, and he received encouragement from other paint-ers working in the area.HM >is scene is in many ways a smaller-scale version of the monumental landscapes being exhibited by PAFA graduates at the academy in the mid-6??As. Tanner would have seen the work of fellow student Alexander Harrison (6?;7–637A)—for example, Harrison’s Bord de Mer, which had received honorable mention at the Paris Salon, was exhibited at PAFA in 6??;. Additionally, Harrison’s award-winning !e Wave was painted in Concarneau, France, approxi-mately one year before Sand Dunes and was a prizewin-ner at PAFA in 6??, (Fg.6).

In 6??3, Tanner moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in an attempt to “unite business with art.”HN He established a photography studio but was not Fnancially success-ful, and none of his photographs from this period have been identiFed. However, while in Atlanta, he made lifelong friends and patrons that included Bishop and Mrs. Joseph Crane Hartzell and Wesley N. CliVord. CliVord taught at Clark University and, after meeting Tanner in the mountains of North Carolina in the sum-mer of 6??3, may have helped him secure a position at the university.HO Much of the work that remains from Tanner’s time in Georgia and North Carolina are land-scapes, among them two watercolors from 6??3, entitled Mountain Landscape, Highlands, North Carolina and Highlands, N.C. (plates 6:–67), and several oil paintings, including Mountain Landscape, Highlands, North Caro-lina (ca. 6??3; plate 6A) and Georgia Landscape (6??3–3A; plate 69). >e watercolors are fresh and vibrant and the paintings detailed and evocative. Tanner was also com-missioned to do a portrait (now lost) of then Clark pres-ident William H. Crogman, and it also may have been at this time that he gave or sold to Crogman Untitled Landscape (ca. 6??3; plate 66), now in the collection of the Robert W. WoodruV Library of the Atlanta University Center.HP >e landscapes from this period are accom-plished works with highly spontaneous brushwork, and they demonstrate the skill and talent of the young artist.

Although his photographic studio did not succeed, support from the friends he made in Atlanta allowed him to travel to pursue his dream of following in the footsteps of Eakins and studying in Europe. In 6?3A, to raise money for Tanner’s travels, Mrs. Hartzell held

an exhibition of his paintings in her native Cincinnati. When these works failed to sell well, the Hartzells directly supported Tanner’s European trip.

Tanner and Modern Painting in Paris

Tanner arrived in Paris in 6?36, intending a brief stop-over en route to Rome, but he stayed and studied at the Académie Julian, which was founded in 6?8? by Rodolphe Julian and attended by many American art-ists. As a student at the school, Tanner had weekly access to models from which he created académies, or life drawings. One of these accomplished works is Study of a Negro Man (ca. 6?36–37; plate 68). Tanner’s train-ing at PAFA prepared him well for his studies at the Académie Julian, as attested by the masterful handling of this particular drawing. In addition to the weekly drawing sessions, Julian students received critiques from eminent artists, and two of the tutors during Tanner’s enrollment were Jean-Paul Laurens (6?7?–63:6) and Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant (6?9;–63A:). Constant, in particular, had a lasting inIuence on Tanner, particu-larly on his early paintings of the Near East.

A small group of urban landscapes from Tanner’s Frst years in Paris show him developing his own style under the inIuence of French impressionism and James Abbott McNeill Whistler (6?79–63A7), fellow American expatriate and internationally acclaimed artist. Whis-tler, celebrated for his series of nocturnal views of Lon-don from the 6?,As, appears to have shaped two of Tan-ner’s Frst nocturnes, View of !e Seine, Looking Toward Notre Dame (6?38; plate 7A) and !e Seine-Evening (ca. 63AA; plate 9,). >ese scenes attest to Tanner’s particu-lar intrigue in the nighttime illumination of Paris. His interest in nocturnes continued in his famous religious works, and he would also return to the subject in paint-ings made during World War I.HQ

Like many artists studying in Paris in the late nine-teenth century, Tanner left the city for the French coun-tryside in the summer, and in the summers of 6?36 and 6?3:, he traveled to Brittany. While there, he continued his experimentation in landscape and branched out into genre, or views of everyday life, focusing on the lives of French peasants. A Fne example of the small-scale

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landscapes he made at this time is Edge of the Forest (Bois d’Amour) (ca. 6?37; plate 6;). Tanner’s painterly technique in such works is notably more impressionis-tic than the earlier, Barbizon-inIuenced landscapes he completed before his move to France. His earlier land-scapes, such as Mountain Landscape and Sand Dunes, seem to have been completed in the studio, while his Brittany scenes seem to have been painted en plein air and reIect the stylistic inIuence of impressionism, par-ticularly its emphasis on light eVects.

Like his fellow PAFA colleague Cecilia Beaux (6?;;–639:) (Fg. :), Tanner often included Breton sub-jects in traditional dress in his paintings. His attention to the details of these costumes reveals the inIuence of both the mass-produced postcard images of Brittany (Fg. 7) and the large-scale works of French contempo-rary artists Jules Bastien-Lepage (6?9?–6??9) and Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (6?;:–63:3), which garnered enor-mous acclaim at the French Salons of the 6??As. Like

Tanner, these artists spent time away from Paris (in Pont-Aven), capturing the life of Breton peasants on canvas. Dagnan-Bouveret received the Medal of Honor at the Salon and the Grand Prize at the Exposition Universelle in 6??3 for his painting Breton Women at a Pardon.JR Tanner must have been aware of not only the popularity but also the critical success these views of Breton country life engendered in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and their notoriety may have been one of the reasons he traveled to Brittany.

Tanner completed three major French genre scenes during his time in Brittany: !e Bagpipe Lesson (6?3:–37; plate 6?), !e Bagpipe Player (6?3;; plate :,), and !e Young Sabot Maker (6?3;; plate :8). >ese paintings were the artist’s Frst submissions to the French Salon. Unlike the small landscapes he completed while in Bois d’Amour, these large canvases reIect the inIuence of leading French Salon painters rather than that of the impressionists and focus on narrative peasant scenes rather than landscape. >ese works represent Tanner’s return to narrative painting. It is natural that Tanner should have chosen such scenes to make his mark in Paris, as many of his contemporaries from PAFA were also working in Brittany at the same time, includ-ing Cecilia Beaux, Alexander Harrison, and Charles Sprague Pearce (6?;6–6369).JG

Tanner’s narrative paintings were popular and suc-cessful in his native Philadelphia. In “>e Negro in Art—H.SO. Tanner’s Latest Triumph” (A.M.E. Church

Figure :. Cecilia Beaux, Study of Two Breton Women, Concarneau, France, 6???. Oil on canvas, 67 11 W16 U 6A X in.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Gift of Henry Sandwith Drinker, 63;A.6,.,.

Figure 7. Roget Viollet, !e Bois d’Amour ca. 63AA. Postcard. Collection Boyle-Turner.

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Review of July 6?3,), the author stated, “We recall now that we once saw in the great Wanamaker store in Phil-adelphia a picture by Mr. Tanner, for which we were told the merchant prince paid a snug sum.”JH >e work was in all probability !e Bagpipe Lesson, which had hung at Wanamaker’s Philadelphia art gallery in Sep-tember 6?39 and in their New York gallery in June 6?3,. Wanamaker partner Robert C. Ogden hoped to pur-chase this painting by subscription for PAFA but even-tually donated it to Hampton University, where he was a trustee.JJ John Wanamaker, owner of the Wanamaker department store empire, was also a patron of Tanner’s teacher Hovenden, and the mercantile magnate had installed in his home the elder artist’s Breaking Home Ties (6?3A; Fg. 9).

Tanner and African American Representation

From April :? to May ;, 6?39, Tanner and Hovenden shared an exhibition at James S. Earle and Sons Gallery on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia.JK Included in this exhibition was Tanner’s !e !ankful Poor (6?39; plate ::), which can be interpreted as an American version of his own Breton peasant views. Both the Brittany subjects and Tanner’s two African American genre scenes emphasize concern for the dignity of the learn-ing process, respect for the working class, transmission of knowledge from one generation to another, and the importance of education. Tanner’s time spent in Brittany, absorbing the inIuence of the modern French academic tradition of peasant genre scenes, as well as his work with Hovenden led him to create innovative portrayals of African Americans based on traditional genre scenes. He did this by painting respectful, naturalistic depic-tions of African Americans that stood in sharp contrast to other, unfortunately more typical, caricatured images.

Tanner was not the Frst American artist to include African Americans in genre scenes, particularly those of music making. Similar works by Hovenden and Eak-ins were already popular in Philadelphia. Eakins had painted Study for “Negro Boy Dancing”: !e Boy, prob-ably 6?,,, and Study for “Negro Boy Dancing”: !e Banjo Player, probably 6?,, (plates 6–:), and the visual tradi-tion reached back to the genre paintings of William

Sidney Mount, such as !e Power of Music (6?9,). Tan-ner’s unique contribution, however, is the humanity and pathos that he brought to these views. He adapted what he learned from his teachers at PAFA, as well as what he had learned in Paris and Brittany, and infused it into his own early creations. His iconic genre paintings from this period include !e Banjo Lesson (6?37; plate :6), !e !ankful Poor, and Spinning by Firelight – !e Boyhood of George Washington Gray (6?39; plate :7).JM Tanner wrote in the third person about his decision to undertake !e Banjo Lesson and !e !ankful Poor:

Since his return from Europe he has painted mostly Negro subjects, he feels drawn to such subjects on account of the newness of the Feld and because of a desire to represent the serious, and pathetic side of life among them, and it is his thought that other things being equal, he who has most sympathy with his subjects will obtain the best results. To his mind many of the artists who have represented Negro life have only seen the comic, the ludicrous side of it, and have lacked sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior.JN

>is quote from Tanner must be seen as a reaction to the racist images of minstrelsy that were rampant in the popular press in the late nineteenth century.JO It

Figure 9. >omas Hovenden, Breaking Home Ties 6?3A. Oil on canvas, ;: Y U ,: T in. Philadelphia Museum of Art,

Philadelphia, PA, Gift of Ellen Harrison McMichael in memory of C. Emory McMichael, 639:, 639:-8A-6.

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is also important to note that at this time he not only did genre scenes of African American life, which may have been inIuenced by his travels in the mountains of the Carolinas, but he also completed at least one commission, Spinning by Firelight. Chicago Methodist Episcopal minister, educator, and social reformer George Washington Gray (6?79–6367) commissioned the paint-ing, which emphasizes the edifying nature of both intel-lectual and manual labor.JP In this way, the commission is part of a larger body of work, including Tanner’s two African American genre scenes, and !e Bagpipe Lesson and !e Young Sabot Maker, all of which celebrate the value of labor and the transmission of knowledge across generations.JQ

Tanner’s studies at PAFA coincided with part of the period from 6??A to 63AA in which Eakins was an avid and innovative photographer.KR It was during this time that Tanner must have learned his trade as a photog-rapher, because when he went to Atlanta in 6??3–3A, it was to “unite business with art” and combine his paint-ing practice with a photography business. Tanner’s ear-liest extant photograph is one that served as a study for !e Banjo Lesson. Given this interest in photography, it is not surprising that Tanner employed the medium in some of his painted compositions. Recent scholarship

suggests that the surviving photograph was initially made to help Tanner create an illustration for a short story, “Uncle Tim’s Compromise on Christmas,” by Ruth McEnery Stuart (6?93–636,), which was published in Harper’s Young People in 6?37 (Fgures ;–8)KG. It seems that Tanner’s photographic print inspired him to adapt and monumentalize the image into a large oil paint-ing. While the poses of the models are similar in the photograph and painting, Tanner has clearly focused his artistry with his brush, as it is in the painted canvas that he captures the glow of Frelight and daylight as well as the intense connection between his subjects.

Tanner would also pay homage to his own upbring-ing during this brief time back in the United States, creating one of his few surviving sculptures, Bust of Ben-jamin Tucker Tanner (6?39; plate :A).KH >is patinated plaster bust shows Bishop Tanner deep in thought, almost as if he is composing a sermon or speech. With his faraway gaze and a prominent cross hanging at his neck, Bishop Tanner appears as a formidable Fgure, both intellectual and religious, a leader in this world pondering the world beyond. A few years later, when Tanner visited his family in Kansas City after his Frst major Salon success (to be discussed in detail later in this essay), he painted Benjamin Tucker Tanner (6?3,;

Figure ;. Attributed to Henry Ossawa Tanner, study photograph for !e Banjo Lesson

Collection Jacques Tanner, Le Douhet, France.

Figure 8. Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dis heah’s a fus’-class thing ter work o" bad tempers wid

Illustration, Harper’s Young People 6;, no. ,78 (December ;, 6?37): ?9.

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plate 77), Mother of Henry O. Tanner (n.d.; plate 76), and Portrait of the Artist’s Mother (6?3,; plate 7:). >ese paintings were intended to be kept in the family and were not made for public display.

Portrait of the Artist’s Mother ranks with the best of the artist’s oeuvre. It is a reinterpretation and personal-ization of Whistler’s Arrangement in Gray and Black No. #, or Portrait of !e Artist’s Mother (6?,6), which Tanner would have seen while a student at PAFA, as the work was on exhibition there in 6??6 (Fg. ,).KJ Another PAFA artist likewise inIuenced by Whistler’s masterpiece was Cecilia Beaux, who did her own version featuring a mother and child, Les derniers jours d’enfance (Ernesta Beaux Drinker; the artist’s sister; and Henry Sandwith Drinker), in 6??7–?; (Fg. ?). In 6?36, the year of Tan-ner’s arrival in Paris, the French government purchased Whistler’s portrait, as in 6?3, it would purchase Tan-ner’s !e Resurrection of Lazarus (6?38; plate :3). Schol-ars have certainly connected the Whistler and Tanner paintings of their mothers, suggesting that Tanner’s visit to his parents’ home in the summer of 6?3, was a celebratory visit after the French government’s purchase of Lazarus to hang with Arrangement in Gray and Black, No. # in the galleries at the Musée du Luxembourg.KK M. Rachael Arauz and Dewey Mosby have called attention to the fact that Portrait of the Artist’s Mother was never meant for the Salon; it was a personal work created for

display in the family home. >erefore, Tanner’s painting should not be interpreted as in competition with Whis-tler but as a text that the artist was rewriting for his own purposes. Tanner’s mother appears relaxed in contrast to the rigid, puritanical pose of Whistler’s Mother. Both Beaux and Tanner used reddish-brown Rembrantesque tones as opposed to Whistler’s cool hues. Tanner’s col-ors would be in keeping with his old master palette at the time, which is similar to that of Lazarus. Akin to tonalist contemporary portraits, a pensive melancholia pervades both Beaux’s and Tanner’s compositions.KM >e contemplative mood of both compositions suggests the psychological intimacy and empathy that both artists had with their familial sitters.

Tanner and Modern Religious Painting

A major shift occured in Tanner’s career trajectory in 6?38. Dewey Mosby has astutely pointed out that although Tanner submitted both !e Banjo Lesson and !e Bagpipe Lesson to the French Salon, it was the latter, “with Brittany denizens, [that] was given a medal, while paintings with a ‘distinctive race inIuence and character’ were ignored.” KN Tanner’s shift away from genre paint-ing and his movement toward religious painting in this moment in American and French art history were very

Figure ,. James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Arrangement in Gray and Black No. #,

or Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, 6?,6. Oil on canvas, ;, U 89 in. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France, RF 833. Photo J.SG. Berizzi.

© Réunion des Musées NationauxS/SArt Resource, NY.

Figure ?. Cecilia Beaux, Les derniers jours d’enfance (Ernesta Beaux Drinker; the artist’s sister;

and Henry Sandwith Drinker) 6??7–?;. Oil on canvas, 98 U ;9 in. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,

Philadelphia, PA, Gift of Cecilia Drinker Saltonstall, 63?3.:6.

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timely—and must be thought of as strategic reactions to the pressures of the market as well as a reIection of the artist’s genuine religious sentiment and upbringing.

Tanner received his Frst major recognition in France with his Daniel in the Lions’ Den (6?38; Fg. 3), which was awarded honorable mention at the Salon. An article in the October 6?3, A.M.E. Church Review advised readers that “American art journals Frst began to apprise their public of the rising new star in Mr. Tan-ner when there was hung in the Philadelphia Gallery of Fine Arts his ‘Daniel in the Lion’s Den,’ [sic] a subject in his favorite light eVects. >e Philadelphia Preachers’ Meeting of the AME Church purchased this picture for Z6,AAA and presented it to the Gallery.”KO >e paint-ing was exhibited at PAFA in December 6?38 and then toured nationally and internationally. >ough the paint-ing is lost, we know the work through photographs and through a later work on paper now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (plate ;,). >e painting appears to be the fulFllment of the attempt Tanner had begun years earlier to depict the story of Androcles. Here again is a tale of slavery and redemp-tion. What is new, and distinct, in this painting is what the A.M.E. Church Review referred to as his “favorite

light eVects,” which take on their own narrative role. >ey can also be seen clearly in !e !ankful Poor and !e Banjo Lesson, but they become increasingly impor-tant in the religious paintings that Tanner turned to almost exclusively in the late 6?3As.

During this period, Tanner developed a lifelong rela-tionship with Harrison S. Morris (6?;8–639?), who served as director of PAFA from 6?3: to 63A; and was one of this country’s Frst professional arts administrators. In a letter from Morris to Tanner, Morris stated of Daniel:

>e picture Daniel was very much admired while it was in our exhibition, and especially commended by Mr. William M. Chase who spoke of it in a public address to his students and privately praised it very often. I may say to you privately that it very nearly received the Walter Lippincott Prize of Z7AA.AA. I am very sorry that more substantial results should not have been produced by it; but I know that you will persevere in your course and some day there will be a better outcome.KP

Archival records from PAFA and the Harrison S. Morris papers at Princeton University document the extensive professional and personal relationship of Tanner and Morris. In the 6?3As and early twentieth century, Morris had Tanner annotate the annual Paris Salon catalogues for him, and Tanner sent the books back to Philadelphia with his recommendations of the best works of the year noted in the pages.KQ As Tanner’s star continued to rise in Paris, he was Morris’s eyes and ears in the city of modern painting.

In the 6?3As, Tanner was also an integral part of a group of Americans in Paris. He shared a studio with Hermon A. MacNeil (6?88–639,) in 6?37, and in the years around 6?3; was immortalized on canvas by Her-mann Dudley Murphy (6?8,–639;) and in plaster by fel-low PAFA alum Charles GraIy (6?8:–63:3) (Fg. 6A).MR Tanner’s major patrons of the 6?3As were also members of this group; they were not only religious leaders but also wealthy proponents and inIuential supporters of religious art and artists. When, in 6?3;, Tanner joined the American Art Association of Paris (AAAP), Amer-ican merchant heir Rodman Wanamaker (6?87–63:?) was president. Was it his fellow Philadelphian Wana-

Figure 3. Henry Ossawa Tanner, Daniel in the Lions’ Den 6?38. Oil on canvas (lost). Image courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Archives.

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maker—whose family had been collecting contempo-rary religious art for more than a decade at the time—who encouraged Tanner to take up religious painting? Most likely, it was a conIuence of this association and Tanner’s own Christian upbringing that led him to infuse modernity into religious painting, thus becoming one of America’s leading international artists at the turn of the century. Other factors that inIuenced this shift in artistic practice likely include his interaction with sym-bolist artists in Brittany and naturalist religious artists in Paris, as well as the sensational international popular-ity of Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret’s !e Last Supper at the Salon at the Champs-de-Mars in 6?38 (Fg. 66).MG Also, Tanner was probably impressed by James Tissot’s water-color series !e Life of Christ, which premiered in Paris in 6?39 and toured select northeast U.S. cities as well as Chicago in 6?3? before the works were purchased by the Brooklyn Museum in 63AA.

Tanner created his major Salon paintings during a time of great interest in religious art in America. From the 6?8As to 6?3As, the number of illustrated books based on the life of Christ increased greatly in the country, as did popular mass reproductions of Christ’s portrait.MH Additionally, French religious artists enjoyed great popu-larity in the United States in the 6?3As and early twen-tieth century. Much excellent scholarship has been con-

ducted in the past twenty-Fve years on Tanner’s religious works.MJ However, they should particularly be understood within the context of popular religious tastes and collect-ing habits in both Europe and America.

John Wanamaker (6?7?–63::)—father of Tanner’s benefactor, Rodman—was a major patron of religious art and had purchased works by the popular Hungar-

Figure 6A. Charles GraIy, Henry O. Tanner 6?38. Painted plaster, :? U 6: U 3[ in.

>e Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY, Gift of J.SO. Tanner, 6393 (93.;9).

Photo: Jerry L. >ompson. Image © >e Metropolitan Museum of ArtS/SArt Resource, NY.

Figure 66. Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret, !e Last Supper, ca. 6?38 Oil on canvas, 66? U 63; in. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras, France, Inv. D376.6; AM6?:?. Photo: Hervé Lewandowski. © Réunion des Musées NationauxS/SArt Resource, NY.

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ian artist Mihály Munkácsy as early as February 3, 6??,. Munkácsy’s internationally renowned paintings Christ before Pilate (6??6) and Christ on Golgotha (6??9) were bought in 6??, and hung at John Wanamaker’s coun-try home outside Philadelphia until a Fre in 63A, nearly destroyed them.MK At this point, they were moved to the Wanamaker Iagship store in downtown Philadel-phia, two blocks from PAFA, where they were shown annually in the store’s Easter Week displays from 6366 to 63??. What connections might be drawn between John Wanamaker’s patronage of Munkácsy and Rod-man Wanamaker’s patronage of Tanner? I do not wish to suggest that Tanner was inIuenced aesthetically by the Hungarian artist, as Tanner’s work is very diVer-ent in signiFcant ways from that of Munkácsy. Tan-ner’s themes are Protestant rather than Catholic, and his religious art eschewed grand narrative and was not indebted to Passion plays. However, it was Tanner’s relationship with Wanamaker and his encounter with the sensational religious art on display in Paris in the summer of 6?38 that inspired him to turn to religious painting, creating Daniel and, later, his early master-piece !e Resurrection of Lazarus (6?38; plate :3).

While scholars have casually noted the connection between Tanner’s religious works and the artistic circle of Gauguin at Pont-Aven, it is also very likely that Tan-ner was inIuenced by Dagnan-Bouveret, a student of Gérôme—as had been Tanner’s own teacher, Eakins. Mosby has associated Tanner with Gauguin because “Tanner’s deep, uptilted space .S .S . recalls his exposure at Pont-Aven to the more contemporary composi-tional notions of the circle of Gauguin.”MM In Tanner’s twentieth-century works such as Fishermen’s Devotions, Étaples (ca. 636A–:A; plate 88), there are many rever-berations from Gauguin’s circle. But in Tanner’s early French works, there are many more stylistic similarities to the paintings of Dagnan-Bouveret; their depictions of French peasants in Pont-Aven, Brittany, and the reli-gious paintings they contributed to the Salon in Paris are comparable. At the turn of the century, both art-ists were collected by the same institutions, such as the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh and the Art Institute of Chicago, and were receiving numerous honors from the French state.MN Fellow American and art collector Henry Clay Frick (6?9?–6363) collected works by Dag-

nan-Bouveret, and the Art Institute of Chicago had a one-man show of the artist in 63A6.MO His Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus, exhibited at the Carnegie Inter-national in 6?3?, was bought by Frick for the Carnegie Museum in that year. In the same year, Tanner exhib-ited Jews’ Wailing Place (6?3,; Fg.6;) at the Carnegie, and afterward he exhibited there on a regular basis. In 63A,, his Christ at the Home of Martha and Mary (ca. 63A;; plate ;:) was purchased out of the Carnegie Interna-tional for the Carnegie Museum, and Tanner’s !e Two Disciples at the Tomb (ca. 63A8; plate ;9) was acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago in 63A8.

>e French art press also made the connection between the two artists. In an article on religious art of the Salon published in 6?33, Gustave Soulier stated: “>e most sincere of all these attempts is undoubtedly the painting by Mr. Tanner, Nicodemus comes to see Jesus, and is consequently the most likely to aVect us. We saw a few years ago, a Resurrection of Lazarus, by this same artist, today in the Musée du Luxembourg, which presented very serious qualities under the per-ceptible inIuence of Dagnan-Bouveret.”MP

An article published in 63AA acknowledged the inIuence of Dagnan-Bouveret on Tanner’s work: “>e Feld which Tanner has chosen, or rather the line in painting which he felt strongly impelled to take, is one where he has little rivalry. Of the French school only Dagnan-Bouveret and Tissot are serious painters of biblical scenes, and Tissot works only for reproduc-tion.S .S .S . Aside from Dagnan-Bouveret, who Tanner acknowledges has inIuenced him to some extent, there is more true religious sentiment in Tanner’s pictures than in any contemporary work.”MQ Dagnan-Bouveret’s most famous religious work is the monumental !e Last Supper, to which the New York Times devoted three paragraphs out of a two-page review, describing it as “one of the centres [sic] of attraction” when it was exhib-ited at the Salon de Champ-de-Mars in 6?38.NR

In the summer of 6?38, Tanner began work on !e Resurrection of Lazarus; he Fnished it six months later. >ough Lazarus is much smaller than !e Last Supper, the painting did not start out that way. Tanner began Lazarus by working with a much larger canvas—six by ten feet—which he claimed a friend had told him to use; however, he soon gave that up and returned to the

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smaller canvas that he had initially chosen.NGModern Tanner scholars, as well as contemporary reviewers, have noted the work’s dramatic use of light, monumen-tal scale, and brown and gold coloration, all of which were strikingly similar to the eVects employed by Dag-nan-Bouveret. Both artists, in turn, were inIuenced by the dramatic chiaroscuro of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn’s (68A8–6883) Christ at Emmaus (68:?–:3; Fg. 6:). In Dagnan-Bouveret’s Last Supper, the light seems to ema-nate from Christ himself, while in Tanner’s Lazarus the source of light seems to be the miracle, the resurrected protagonist.NH Light spills out from Lazarus’s white drapery to illuminate a crowd of spectators emerg-ing from shadows. Like Dagnan-Bouveret’s disciples, who bask in the glow of Christ, Tanner’s spectators are brought into the light via the miracle occurring before them. Tanner’s painting, however, is much more inti-mate. >e rigid centrality of Dagnan-Bouveret’s Christ contrasts signiFcantly with Tanner’s more humble rep-resentation of Jesus.NJ Perhaps this is why so many crit-ics saw Tanner’s painting as being infused with more “personal” religious feeling.NK

Both Tanner and Harrison Morris of PAFA wanted Lazarus to travel to Philadelphia; however, the French government, which controlled the Luxembourg

Museum—where the painting was housed—would not loan it. In a letter dated September ::, 6?3,, Tanner wrote to Morris, “I am sorry to say that my picture will not come to Phila as I desired. Of this I am somewhat disappointed.” Morris repeatedly tried to get the paint-ing to Philadelphia, but, as Tanner again told him on December :;, 6?3,, the cause was lost. Morris lamented the French bureaucracy’s decision to refuse the loan: “We realize how diLcult it would be to change the position taken by the government oLcials, which you yourself have approved of.”NM

Tanner in the Holy Land

Tanner’s success with !e Resurrection of Lazarus inspired Rodman Wanamaker to fund the artist’s trip to the Holy Land. Wanamaker saw the painting in Tanner’s studio and remarked, “>ere is Orientalism in the ‘Lazarus,’ but it was a fortunate accident.”NN Tanner’s Frst visit to the Near East was in 6?3,,and he traveled along a then-popular itinerary to Cairo, Jerusalem, Port Said, JaVa, Jericho, the Dead Sea, and Alexandria. After that excur-sion, he returned to Paris via Venice in May 6?3,. In the fall of 6?3?, Rodman Wanamaker planned another trip for Tanner to the Holy Land. >e artist’s loose brush-work technique, apparent in work from this period, shows an indebtedness to the academic Orientalism of his teacher Constant—such as Seated Arabs (6?,,; Fg. 67) now in the Dahesh Collection. In invoking the word

Figure 6:. Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Christ at Emmaus 68:?–:3.

Oil on paper transferred on canvas, 6; U 6, in. Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, France.

© ScalaS/SArt Resource, NY.

Figure 67. Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant, Seated Arabs 6?,,. Oil on canvas, 3 U 67 in. © Dahesh Museum of Art,

New York, NY, 633,.96S/S>e Bridgeman Art Library.

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“Orientalism,” Wanamaker was most likely referring to the work of nineteenth-century French painters such as Constant and Gérôme, who used architectural elements and ethnic details derived from their travels in North Africa and the Near East to depict aspects of native cul-tures in their paintings.NO

Before traveling to Cairo and Jerusalem for the Frst time in 6?3,, Tanner had several opportunities—in the United States and in France—to immerse himself in the contemporary visual culture of Orientalism. In 6?37, he traveled to the Chicago World’s Fair to present the paper “>e American Negro in Art” at the Congress on Africa, an auxiliary session at the World’s Columbian Exposition. While there, he may have visited the “Street of Cairo” attraction, which re-created the architecture one might Fnd in a narrow lane in Cairo and included women performing the belly dance.NP In the same year in Paris, the Parisian Society of Orientalist Artists was formed, and Gérôme and Constant were named honor-ary presidents. >e president, Léonce Bénédite, was the chief curator of the Musée du Luxembourg, and it was he who decided to purchase Tanner’s Orientalist Laza-rus for the French state museum.NQ In the Frst years of its organization, the society’s exhibitions were held at the Galerie Durand-Ruel, and Tanner would have had the opportunity to attend these exhibitions—and may have been encouraged to go, given that his mentor from the Académie Julian, Constant, was the society’s honorary president. By the society’s peak in 6367, it had presented a

thousand works of Orientalist art at its annual exhibition.Tanner’s and Constant’s scenes revel in the exotic

dress and rich decorative traditions of the Orient. Yet Tanner—like his American compatriot Sargent, who was painting the architecture of the Muslim world at the time—seems to have been more interested in conveying the play of light in the darkened, dramatic space of the mosque than in depicting the visitors within it (Fg. 69). Constant and Tanner employ a loose, modern brush-work, an inIuence of naturalism and realism, and there-fore their visions of the East do not have the polished surfaces seen in Gérôme’s paintings. Another major work executed by Tanner on this trip was a view, now lost (Fg. 6;) of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. A preparatory work, Study for the Jews’ Wailing Place (ca. 6?3,; plate 9:), exists in the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) collection.

Visual and cultural evidence link Tanner’s Orientalist style to contemporaneous photography of the Near East. One Orientalist photograph owned by Tanner, titled the Mosque of Omar (from the south), in the Tanner Papers at the Archives of American Art (ca. 63:A; Fg. 68), is an image of what is now known as the Dome of the Rock but which in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries

Figure 69. John Singer Sargent, Door of a Mosque ca. 6?36. Oil on canvas, :?Y U 76\ in. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA,

Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond, 7,.;A.

Figure 6;. Henry Ossawa Tanner, Jews’ Wailing Place 6?3,. Oil on canvas (lost). Image courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy

of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Archives.

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was often referred to as the Mosque of Omar. An almost identical photograph of the mosque, called Jerusalem (El-Kouds) Mosque of Omar [ Dome of the Rock ] from the South, is held in the American Colony of Jerusalem Collection at the Library of Congress (6?3?–6369; Fg. 6,).OR Although the mosque is not in any of Tanner’s paintings, the sur-vival of this photograph suggests that on his travels, or before them, Tanner would have purchased contempo-rary photographs of the Holy Land and North Africa, perhaps from the American Colony of Jerusalem, to help him with his work.

>us, when Wanamaker Fnanced Tanner’s Frst trip to the Holy Land, the artist was familiar with images of the Orient that circulated in the United States and France in the form of World’s Fairs, Fne art exhibitions, and tourist photography. Two recently recovered paint-ings remain from Tanner’s time in Egypt—the Inte-rior of a Mosque, Cairo (6?3,; plate 78) and A Mosque in Cairo (6?3,; plate 7;), with the latter appearing to be the exterior of the same mosque. >is is most likely the Ff-teenth-century Circassian Mamluk mosque complex of Qait Bey, Sultan al-Ashraf Basrsbay.OG Perhaps his Frst work from his travels is Interior of a Mosque, Cairo, of 6?3,, now in the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston. According to research documents in the MFA curato-rial Fles, this particular mosque was a popular subject in nineteenth-century French Orientalist photography.OH A

comparison between Tanner’s painting and H. Béchard’s photograph Intérieur de la Mosquée Caïd Bey, Caire, taken by 6??,, reveals striking similarities (6?33; Fg. 6?).OJ Both images include the distinct wooden minbar, two-toned

Figure 6,. American Colony ( Jerusalem), Jerusalem (El-Kouds), Mosque of Omar [Dome of the Rock] from the South, ca. 6?3?–6369. Negative (glass, dry plate), 6A U 6: in. G. Eric and Edith Matson

Photograph Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC.

Figure 6?. >e mausoleum of Sultan al-Ashraf Qaytbay. >e Iiwan. H. Béchard No. 68?.

Intérieur de la Mosquée Caïd Bey, Caire Reproduced in 6?,,. © GriLth Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, England.

Figure 68. American Colony ( Jerusalem), Mosque of Omar (from the South), ca. 63:A.

Black-and-white photographic print on board, 3 \ U 6: in. Henry Ossawa Tanner papers, 6?8As–63,?, Archives of

American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

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Moorish arches, and a seated worshipper to the left of the minbar and standing turbaned Fgures. Tanner may have seen photographs of the mosque before he traveled to Egypt or perhaps he used them as an aide-mémoire in constructing his paintings.

Tanner’s second trip to the Holy Land, again funded by Wanamaker, was in 6?3? and 6?33. On this visit he painted A View in Palestine (6?3?–33; plate 97) and Flight into Egypt (6?33; Fg. 63). >ese two landscapes show Tanner moving away from earlier Barbizon and impressionist techniques and toward a vision of nature as personal and symbolist as his religious paintings. >e former scene—with its high horizon line, paint-erly swaths of pigment, and dramatic skyline—is dis-tinct from other American landscapes of the Holy Land because of Tanner’s interest in capturing the mood and atmosphere of the terrain rather than its topographic realities.OK >e landscape—with its steep perspective, narrow, stormy patch of sky, and wispy, ghostlike brush-strokes—is almost menacing. It visually corresponds to what Tanner was to write later in life, that the landscape of “Palestine always impressed [him] as the background for a great tragedy.”OM >ough Tanner’s landscape is nonFgural and makes no direct reference to the Passion of Christ or to more recent tragedies of conquest and war, it feels nonetheless haunted by these themes. With Flight into Egypt—the Frst interpretation of a subject

to which Tanner repeatedly returned—biblical tragedy is alluded to by the shadowy Fgures immersed in a noc-turnal desert wasteland.

In the January 6?3? issue of the A.M.E. Church Review, Tanner published a description of his visit to the tomb of Lazarus, a place he had famously rendered two years before at the Salon. >is text provides another window into how Tanner saw the Holy Land:

In Jerusalem—on foot, or riding a thin, wiry Arab horse—through narrow streets, in and out among a jostling, motley, turbaned, burnoosed crowd—past crowded cafés Flled with wild men from beyond the Jordan playing checkers, or a kind of backgam-mon, each group surrounded by stately Arabs lazily smoking their chibouk—through the Bazaars where others more actively engaged are buying, selling or disputing with money changers—past shops with their picturesque occupants, both Jew and Arab—past a ragged and, perchance, sore-footed sentinel at St. Stephen’s Gate, and you are now outside of Jerusalem.ON

Here, Tanner uses standard picturesque travel language to describe the residents of Palestine, such as “wild men from .S .S . Jordan” and “stately Arabs.” One can almost imagine that he is describing not his own spiritual pil-grimage, but a high Orientalist painting such as Seated Arabs by Constant. Tanner’s language, steeped in the conventional prose of Western visitors to the Orient, ascribes to diVerent ethnic types certain stereotypical qualities that contemporaries would have seen in the works of Constant and Gérôme.

However, a visual counterpoint to this textual description is Tanner’s Head of a Jew in Palestine (6?33, reworked ca. 636?–:A; plate 98), which is both a very sensitively rendered portrait and a painting indebted to Orientalist discourse. When paired with Tanner’s state-ment, one can see that he was practicing a sort of ethnic cataloguing that nearly all Western artists engaged in when they traveled “East.” >e painting bears a strik-ing resemblance to a photograph, Jew of Jerusalem (63AA–636A; Fg. :A), published by the American Colony of Jerusalem, a utopian society founded in 6??6 by an American family from Chicago.OO Tanner’s painting and

Figure 63. Henry Ossawa Tanner Flight into Egypt 6?33. Oil on canvas, 63 [ U :; \ in. Detroit Institute of Arts,

Detroit, MI, Founders Society Purchase, African Art Gallery Committee Fund 83.9;:S/S>e Bridgeman Art Gallery.

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the photograph represent a similar “type”: an old Jew-ish resident of Jerusalem. >e photographer and painter have presented their Jews of Jerusalem in a place outside time—the photographer by using a studio backdrop and Tanner by painting the Fgure in no identiFable place. >ese depictions, along with other works, such as Tanner’s painting Jews’ Wailing Place and similar photo-graphs from the American Colony in Jerusalem, create the impression that the Jewish residents of Jerusalem are the same as they were in the time of Christ.OP

Yet works such as this, like Tanner’s genre scenes and religious images, have a compelling speciFcity to them. Head of a Jew in Palestine, in particular, intrigued the artist, as he painted it in oil on one of his early trips to Jerusalem and then reworked the painting in tempera in 636?. Compared to the Fgure in the photo-graph, Tanner’s Jew has a pathos and weariness. With his downcast eyes and sorrowful expression, this man could be an apostle or a saint, and his expression stands in stark contrast to the upturned, slightly confused look of the Fgure in the photograph. Although both Fgures are bearded, the subject in the photograph has a wild and unkempt beard, and wears exotic “Eastern”

costume; Tanner’s Fgure dons timeless clothing appro-priate for a Renaissance prophet. Tanner created many such “Eastern Types.” For example, in the exhibition Religious Paintings by the Distinguished American Artist Mr. Henry O. Tanner, held at the American Art Galler-ies in 63A?, he exhibited a painting entitled Head of an Old Jew and four paintings called “Jerusalem Types.”OQ Much as he had done with his African American genre scenes earlier in the decade, Tanner’s “Jerusalem Types,” while very much stemming from traditional Orientalist images, also subvert this same imagery by bestowing a dignity and universality to the subjects.

When Tanner returned to Paris from the Holy Land, he entered the pinnacle of his career as a religious painter steeped in the heritage of Orientalism. One could almost say that Tanner self-consciously enveloped himself in the aura of the era’s leading religious painter, the famous Hungarian artist Munkácsy, when he bought several of Munkácsy’s Orientalist objects at the studio sale after his death in 63AA.PR On a visit to Paris, Tanner family friend W.S S. Scarborough (6?;:–63:8) described objects that Tanner had purchased from Munkácsy’s estate: “A chair of Rubens’, and an old Roman lamp interested us, while still further inquisitiveness revealed draperies which evoked the information that when Munkácsy died, Mr. Tanner bought nearly all his oriental costumes. And there were tiles from Jerusalem, some of which, bearing remnants of Arabic characters, form a part of the foreign treasures prized by the party to-day.” PG

By 63AA, then, with his purchase of Munkácsy’s stu-dio objects, and his visual relationship with the work of Dagnan-Bouveret, Tanner was among the vanguard of European religious painters, and Dagnan-Bouveret’s style continued to resonate in Tanner’s oeuvre after the success of Lazarus. >e similarities between the two artists’ work is evident, again, by comparing Dagnan-Bouveret’s Christ and the Disciples at Emmaus (6?38–3,), now at the Carnegie Museum of Art, and Tanner’s !e Pilgrims of Emmaus (63A;; plate ;7). Many scholars have pointed out the likeness between Tanner’s Mary (La Sainte-Marie) (6?3?; plate 96) and Dagnan-Bouveret’s Madonna of !e Rose (6???), but they have not consid-ered the relationship between such works as Dagnan-Bouveret’s !e Last Supper and the Supper at Emmaus and Tanner’s version of !e Pilgrims of Emmaus.PH !e Last

Figure :A. American Colony ( Jerusalem), Jew of Jerusalem, ca. 63AA–636A.

Albumen photographic print. G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection. Library of Congress Prints

and Photographs Division, Washington, DC.

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Supper seems to have had a profound inIuence on Tan-ner, and it makes sense that it did, given the genuine reli-gious sentiment of its maker, Dagnan-Bouveret’s triumph at the Salon and with American patrons, and Tanner’s desire to achieve the same level of success with the same patrons. One element from the Last Supper that recurs in Tanner’s religious works is Christ’s illumination, which emerges from his chest rather than his head (as a halo); this motif appears in Tanner’s Nicodemus (6?33; plate 9;). Another shared element is the dramatically illuminated, similarly modeled, faces of the disciples. Both artists were very interested in using light to mark divinity and in por-traying the architectural realities of the Holy Land, as comparable structures in Dagnan-Bouveret’s Last Supper and Tanner’s Pilgrims of Emmaus and !e Annunciation (ca. 6?3?; plate 73) attest. As modern innovators in the historical Feld of religious painting, these artists—who brought their own mystical and naturalist interpretations to traditional art-historical subjects—invigorated the genre and attracted considerable press and patronage as a result of their originality.

In 63AA, the critic Vance >ompson stated that with !e Annunciation (6?3?; plate 9A) and Nicodemus (6?33; plate 9;), Tanner was destined to give the world a new conception of the Bible and that “Mr. Tanner is not only a biblical painter, but he has brought to modern art a new spirit.”PJ Critics during Tanner’s time were aware that he was creating a modern vision of the Bible, not primarily engaging in illustration (as was Tissot) but forging a deeply personal representation. In addi-tion to his own mystical treatments of the landscape of the Holy Land, one of the ways Tanner achieved this “modern spirit” was by infusing uniquely contemporary elements—such as the visual culture of electricity and modern dance—into age-old art-historical subjects, such as the Annunciation and Salome.PK

>is is not to suggest that the popularity of the more topographic work of Tissot went unnoticed by Tanner and his patrons. At the time Tanner was working on his major Salon paintings, Robert Ogden encouraged him to undertake a project similar to Tissot’s Life of Christ, and this may have been the impetus for Tanner’s “>e Mothers of the Bible” series for the Ladies’ Home Journal (63A7; plate 7,). Ogden wrote:

I like the idea of the production of a collection that may be suggested by the subjects that you may Fnd in Palestine. It strikes me that, if the number of pictures is suLciently large to command general interest, it would be a very great success. >e Tis-sot pictures, when Frst exhibited in this country, were welcomed by crowds of intelligent people. Of course, they were greatly advertised in advance, but some of the wisdom of this world may be applied to the development of your idea.PM

Tanner sent paintings to Philadelphia, to the pub-lishers of the Ladies Home Journal. >e current where-abouts of these works are unknown, but a charcoal drawing, Study for Rachel from “ >e Mothers of the Bible” (ca. 6?3?; plate 7?), shows the process he used to create the paintings, which would then be reproduced as prints. Harrison Morris had encouraged Tanner to practice illustration around the same time he was secur-ing Nicodemus for PAFA. However, in a letter to Tanner dated June 6:, 6?33, Morris expressed disappointment in Tanner’s initial eVorts: “I fear the Barabbas illustration is hardly what was required. Illustration requires more deFnite treatment than you have given this. I hope you can make another venture and succeed with the work as I should be rejoiced to Fnd you take a front place in this growing American Feld.”PN

Tanner submitted only one nonreligious painting to the Salon in this period, La Musique, or !e Cello Les-son, of 63A: (Fg. :6). Although the image received some positive reviews in the American press, it appears not to have been a success at the Salon; it received at least one decidedly negative review in the French-language press:

Why has M. Tanner, whom we have gotten used to considering as a Fne craftsman of solid works with harmonious tonalities, the weakness to exhibit this Musique capable of making you detest all the Salon’s dainty musicians? Has he really ever seen a lady playing cello with such a badly drawn arm? Was he ever so unfortunate as to contemplate a red painted Garneriu and a green cushion that very certainly contained much arsenic? I pity him then, without Fnding any plausible excuse for him, because his talent is above such an ugly thing.PO

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Although this painting was long thought to be lost, Tanner in fact painted over La Musique, a portrait of his wife playing the cello, with his Emmaus (63A;).PP >e later painting was so well received that it was purchased by the French government. >ereafter, Tanner submit-ted only religious subjects to the Salon.

At this juncture in the artist’s career, he was inter-nationally known, and he exhibited a series of success-ful religious paintings up until the First World War. Because Tanner enjoyed success in both the United States and France, it is important to address why he chose to stay abroad: “In Paris .S .S . no one regards me curiously.S.S.S. I am simply ‘M. Tanner, an American art-ist.’ Nobody knows or cares what was the complexion of my forebears. I live and work there on terms of abso-lute social equality.”PQ Tanner was accepted in France in ways that he could not be in the United States. For example, in French-language Salon reviews the artist’s race is never mentioned, but almost every American article published on Tanner throughout the 6?3As and early twentieth century references his race. >is is not to imply that France was without its own forms of racism. For example, a 63A9 article in the French periodical Foi et vie titled “>e Black Question: >e Negro Soul” used Tanner as an example that “blacks are men like us.”QR

While Tanner and Booker T. Washington were cited as enlightened black men who proved the possibilities of the race, the very fact that this article was written implies that Tanner was considered the exception, even in France, rather than the rule.

Tanner’s technical innovations continued at the turn of the century. One of his Salon paintings, Christ among the Doctors (6?33–63AA, now lost), was one of the Frst works to showcase his famous blue-green-purple palette. Journalist Helen Cole visited Tanner’s studio in 63AA and remarked on the

peculiar green-blue mosaic which I have only seen in the south of Italy, to where it was brought by marauding seamen from the Orient. Mr. Tanner has a slab of this, originally take from some Oriental temple, and this he will use for his mosaic Ioor.S.S.S. >ere is also a sort of purple tunic that he has put on two of the men; not a vivid, strong purple, but a deep, warm, steeped-in-sunshine purple, a tone that I have never seen used by any other painter, and which is deliciously Oriental in feeling.QG

Cole may have felt that the blue-greens and purples that would come to dominate Tanner’s color range were “Oriental” because they recall the colors of Islamic tiles. Tanner would have seen such tiles on his earlier visits to the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Indeed, with his Salon submissions Christ and His Disciples on !eir Way to Bethany (63A:–7; plate 93) and Return of the Holy Women (63A9; plate ;6), his colors move further toward the blue scale. At the time, Tanner seemed to vacillate between two color ranges: the “Oriental” blue-green palette and an “old master”–inspired palette similar to that used in Lazarus and apparent in !e Two Disciples at the Tomb, !e Good Samaritan (63A;, lost), and Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples (63A;, lost; Fg. ::).

In the Frst decade of the twentieth century, Tanner’s technique became more and more diVuse—as opposed to the “deFnite treatment” that Harrison Morris had championed in 6?33. Veering away from the naturalist style of Dagnan-Bouveret, Tanner’s paintings trended toward more mystical subjects, and Tanner constructed his scenes with multiple layers and glazes in the mauve and blue tones that we have so come to associate with

Figure :6. Reproduction of La Musique, or !e Cello Lesson, painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner, 63A:.

UnidentiFed photographer. Black-and-white photographic print, 3 U 6A in. Henry O. Tanner papers, 6?8As–63,?, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

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his mature religious work. Christ at the Home of Martha and Mary, !e Disciples See Christ Walking on the Water (ca. 63A,; plate ;8), the newly rediscovered !e Visitation (ca. 63A3–6A; also called Mary Visiting Elizabeth; plate 86), and !e !ree Marys (636A; plate 89) date from the height of Tanner’s career and are painted in his inimita-ble mystical style. In !e Visitation and !e !ree Marys, Tanner’s manipulation of light and shadow emphasizes

his Fgures’ reactions to the events unfolding just out-side of the picture plane and draws the viewer into the action. Rather than telling the story of an event, as a painter such as Tissot would have done, Tanner creates a personal, experiential moment for the viewer.

A major deviation from Tanner’s typical religious paintings can be found in his Salome (plate ;A), which is dated to circa 63AA. >e painting Frst appears in Tanner literature in 63:9—and it may never have been exhibited in Tanner’s lifetime. Indeed, its bold sensuality is not in keeping with the rest of Tanner’s oeuvre. >e dra-matic color and light eVects and the application of oil paint suggest the work was made in the years immedi-ately following 63AA. In that year Tanner would have been able to see his compatriot Loîe Fuller dancing her famous electric Salome dance at the Exposition Univer-selle.QH Tanner exhibited two paintings, Christ among the Doctors and Daniel in the Lions’ Den, at the Exposition Universelle, and Fuller, who had her own theater at the exposition, was at that time the most famous American in Paris. Fuller was known for her fully clothed dances, where her voluminous, billowing drapery was lit dra-matically from below. Tanner’s Salome employs this same illumination: it is almost as if a glare of electric light is casting a greenish glow on the biblical dancer’s

Figure ::. Henry Ossawa Tanner Christ Washing the Feet of the Disciples 63A;.

Oil on canvas (lost). Image courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Archives.

Figure :7. Henry Ossawa Tanner, !e Wise and Foolish Virgins 63A,–?. Oil on canvas (lost), approximately 6A ft., 8 in. U 69 ft., ? in. (lost).

Image courtesy of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, Archives.

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face. Tanner and Fuller were among many artists for whom Salome was an object of fascination at the turn of the century. Other symbolist artists, including Gus-tave Moreau in 6?,8 and Franz von Stuck in 63A8, were painting her as the quintessential femme fatale.

In 63A, and 63A?, Tanner completed his largest can-vas, !e Wise and Foolish Virgins (also identiFed as Behold the Bridegroom Cometh) (Fg. :7, lost). Newly consulted documentary evidence suggests that this painting was commissioned by Rodman Wanamaker for his Phila-delphia department store, which would explain why the painting was so out of scale (at eleven feet six inches tall and sixteen feet wide) with Tanner’s other works.QJ >e Fgures were life-size and depicted in a grand inte-rior. >is painting, along with another lost canvas, Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet, was in Rodman Wanamaker’s possession by December ,, 63A?, when he sent Christ to be displayed in the galleries of his New York depart-ment store and !e Wise and Foolish Virgins to the Phila-delphia branch. Wanamaker also owned Return of the Holy Women and one of the versions of Christ and his mother studying the scriptures.QK

Tanner continued to use photography to help him construct his Fgurative paintings. Photographs of his wife, Jessie, and his young son, Jesse, were used to com-pose two painted versions of Christ learning to read (plates ;3 and 8,). Interestingly, these photographs are similar compositionally to Tanner’s earlier photographic study for !e Banjo Lesson. In this case, Jessie holds Jesse next to her, encircling him in her arms, while she teaches him to read. >ese photographs continue the theme of education and transmission of knowledge across the generations that Tanner often depicted in his canvases. Technical attention to the play of light and shadow makes these photographs more accomplished than the earlier banjo photograph and suggests that Tanner was aware of pictorialist photography practices in the 636As.!e Wise and Foolish Virgins and Christ and His

Mother Studying the Scriptures (plate ;3) were hung in the most prominent of all of Wanamaker’s galleries, his Munkácsy Gallery Annex, on the ninth Ioor of the Iagship Market Street store in Philadelphia. >ey were there, hanging alongside Munkácsy’s “priceless treasures,” discussed earlier in this essay, and Benjamin West’s Christ Blessing the Little Children until at least

March 63:?, when an inventory was taken of the works after Rodman Wanamaker’s death.QM >eir prominent position in the Wanamaker store meant that the works were seen by legions of Philadelphia consumers and may have inIuenced another PAFA alumna, Violet Oakley, or her patrons, to create a stained-glass version of !e Wise and Foolish Virgins for Saint Peter’s Church in Germantown, Pennsylvania, in 63A? and 63A3 (Fg. :9). >e Wanamaker inventory also revealed that paintings by Tanner and Munkácsy—including A Moment’s Rest in the Woods by Munkácsy and Figure outside of Foreign Buildings by Tanner—hung in the Wanamaker home on Walnut Street. Tanner’s religious paintings may have remained in the store throughout the 637As—and there-fore may have been viewed by decades of shoppers—until they were sold at auction through Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York City, in 6373.QN

Figure :9. Violet Oakley, !e Wise and Foolish Virgins 63A?–3.

Stained-glass lancet windows, 6AA U :7 T in. each. Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,

Philadelphia, PA, John S. Phillips Fund, :AA3.:.6a&b.

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After the Salon: Tanner in North Africa

and the French Countryside

In the years after 636A, Tanner began a series of visits to French North Africa. >ere is some evidence that even before Tanner traveled to North Africa, he was using French postcards to construct paintings of the area. Inconsistencies in the dates of Tanner’s travels to the region and the subjects of some of his paintings have attracted scholarly interest in the artist’s use of these postcards.QO In 6366, Tanner exhibited at >urber Art Galleries in Chicago paintings titled Morocco and a Yemen Jew. >is show took place before he visited Morocco, and Dewey Mosby has stated that “a work like Entrance to the Customs House at Tangier [Entrance to the Customs House in Tangier, Fg. ;8] .S .S . represents a fairly accurate rendition of the site, with some artis-tic license. Flight into Egypt: Palais de Justice, Tangier [Palace of Justice, Tangier, plate ,,] .S.S. where Moroccan architecture serves as a background for the biblical Iight into Egypt, might also follow a photograph or post-card.”QP Both of these subjects, and other works, which we know now only by descriptive titles such as Yemen Jew, have as their prototype turn-of-the-century French postcards. Like his “Jerusalem Types” of a decade earlier, Tanner’s architectural scenes of North Africa should be considered in the light of the French mentalité that constructed them. Near East Scene (ca. 636:; plate ,7), Sunlight, Tangier (ca. 636A; plate ,:), and Entrance to the Casbah (636:; plate ,8) are examples of these constructed views. In 6367, Tanner exhibited Entry to Kasbah, Jew of Marakash, Moonlight—Palace of the Governor of Tangier, Moonrise—East Gate of the Kasbah, and Moonrise—Walls of Tangier at the >urber Art Galleries. A review of the show in the New York Times stated, “One group includes views of Morocco, a number of moonlight scenes outside the citadel, the smaller of which are tranquil and lumi-nous, and ‘Entry to the Citadel,’ ‘>e Sultan’s Stables,’ and other subjects characteristic of the region.”QQ

French postcard makers in Paris, Morocco, and Strasbourg produced scenes of North African markets in the early twentieth century.GRR >e architecture of Entrance to the Customs House in Tangier (ca. 63A?; Fg.;8) could have been copied from any number of French

postcards that featured views of Moroccan markets. >e Palais du Justice in Tangiers was also popular in pictur-esque postcards of the period. “Tanger, La Prison,” pub-lished by H. Grimaud & Cie., Marseilles, and “Tanger (Maroc) Palais de Justice” (ca. 63AA–63:A: Fg. :;) may have served as models for Palace of Justice, Tangier (ca. 636:–67; plate ,,).GRG In particular, postcards of the Pal-ais de Justice often included local Fgures in the fore-ground, such as a man leading a donkey, a charming piece of staVage that Tanner included in Man Leading a Donkey in Front of the Palais de Justice, Tangier (ca. 636:). Clara MacChesney wrote of Tanner’s Tangiers work, after a visit to his studio in Trépied, that the artist was “tempted by the beauty of that unspoiled seaport town, with its entrancing mosques, alleys and narrow streets, its pink, pale mauve and ivory colored plaster houses, and its picturesque people.”GRH >is quote suggests that part of the appeal of Tanner’s work to contemporary audiences was its embrace of picturesque detail rather than its emphasis on verisimilitude.

If his depictions of Tangiers owe a debt to tourist photography, they also seem to be strongly informed by modern devices of visual entertainment, such as stere-ography. >e Greater Lafayette Museum’s Entrance to the Casbah has deep visual resonances with contempo-rary stereographic views, such as the anonymous Tan-gier, Door to the Kasbah (ca. 6?3?–63:;; Fg. :8).GRJ Both works feature a steep-raking, uptilted perspective and white-robed Fgures standing in an arch. >is angled viewpoint is also present in many postcards of Tan-giers, as well as scenic views of the streets of Algiers

Figure :;. Tanger (Maroc) Palais de Justice, ca. 63AA–63:A. Postcard 7 \ U ; in. Collection of Anna O. Marley.

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and Tunisia constructed for the 63AA Exposition Uni-verselle, where Tanner won a silver medal for his Daniel in the Lions’ Den.

After 63AA, much of Tanner’s time in France was spent at his home in Trépied, on the northern coast of France adjacent to the artists’ colony and beach resort of Le Touquet Paris-Plage and the Fshing village of Étaples. He created several nocturnal landscapes, such as Le Touquet (ca. 636A; plate 8;) and Fishermen’s Devo-tions, Étaples, along with genre scenes of the harsh life of Étaples’s Fshermen, such as the dramatic Fishermen at Sea (ca. 6367; plate ,3). Many of these paintings show Fshermen returning from their labors—such as Fisher-men’s Return (63:8; plate 33)—or heading out to Fsh in the night. At least four versions of the latter sub-ject exist, including Return at Night from the Market (ca. 636:; plate ,?) and Étaples Fisher Folk (63:7; plate 38).GRK Prominent in many of these paintings is a lantern, the presence of which attests to the artist’s lifelong fascina-tion with depicting the eVects of light in the darkness.

>e coming of the First World War had a dramatic impact on Tanner’s career. For much of the war, he felt unable to work. In 6369, he wrote to his friend and patron Atherton Curtis, “Soon you can work say some of my friends—but how can I? What right have I to do, what right to be comfortable? .S.S. >is waiting .S.S. waiting, wait-ing, with less light each day until despair puts out all light of life—and this is why I cannot work.”GRM A painting in the collection of Clark Atlanta University Art Collection shows how transformed the once idyllic seaside town of

Étaples had become in the war, invaded by an unending stream of soldiers. War Scene, Étaples, France (6369; plate ?:) is one of the few scenes where Tanner focuses on the impact of the war on his home in northwest France.

In 636,, after the United States entered the con-Iict, Tanner, then Ffty-eight, oVered his contribution to the war eVort: he founded a Red Cross program that employed wounded and convalescing soldiers to raise fresh produce in hospital gardens.GRN Tanner carried out this scheme on the eastern front of the war, in the area around Neufchâteau, and was named assistant director of farm and garden services for the American Red Cross. A group of paintings and sketches done in that region remain some of the most intriguing examples from the artist’s later career. >ese works include American Red Cross Canteen, Toul, France, World War I (636?) and Inter-section of Roads, Neufchâteau, World War I (636?), which belong to the American Red Cross; House of Joan of Arc (Domrémy) (636?; plate ??); Neufchâteau (ca. 636?; plate ?,);GRO and two charcoal sketches, both of the American Red Cross Canteen (636?; plates ?3–3A). Many of these works take as their subject the activities of soldiers in nocturnal landscapes, which allowed the artist to utilize his favorite night eVects and employ his blue palette.

One scene, a depiction of his life on the front work-ing with the Red Cross hospitals, is also infused with a modern spirituality: House of Joan of Arc (Domrémy). >is nocturne shows two American soldiers walking next to a famous French religious landmark, the birthplace of Joan of Arc in the small town of Domrémy-la-Pucelle.

Figure :8. Anonymous Tangier, Door to the Kasbah ca. 6?3?–63:;. Stereoscopic photograph, : U 9 in. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France, Etienne Clementel Fund Inv.

Pho633A-:?-869. Photo: Patrice Schmidt. © Réunion des Musées NationauxS/SArt Resource, NY.

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Domrémy lies not far from Neufchâteau and was the site of an American Red Cross hospital during the war. In fact, a large-walled kitchen garden still exists behind the hospital. It is likely that Tanner was involved in its main-tenance during the war. A robed Fgure stands near the brightly illuminated entrance to the house as if beckon-ing the American soldiers to enter. In this work, Tanner has combined an anecdotal scene of French village life during World War I with a timeless visionary view of a popular pilgrimage site. In his paintings of this period, Tanner excelled in merging the sacred and secular, espe-cially in nocturnal paintings suVused with deep purple and blue hues. Near this house was the military hospital where Tanner worked, growing vegetables for American soldiers, and this calm nocturne suggests a moment of repose and inspiration for the artist and for the soldiers he tended amid the harsh deprivations of wartime.

A Ftting conclusion to Tanner’s paintings related to World War I, !e Arch (6363; plate 36) was painted on July 67, 6363, when a cenotaph hastily built in memory of French soldiers who died in the war was dramatically illuminated and installed beneath the Arc de Triomphe. A mother and child stand to the left of the arch, while on the right-hand side are two veterans in blue uni-forms. Hélène Valance perceptively argues that Tanner symbolically paired the widow and orphan with the two veterans, making these anonymous victims of the war the preeminent protagonists of the scene.GRP >e crowd behind these Fgures remains a shapeless mass, and Tan-ner infuses an eternal spirit into what was an ephemeral monument, which—like the multitudes of lives taken in the war—would soon crumble to dust. >e temporary nature of the cenotaph stands in contrast to the solid arch, suggesting both loss and continuity. >is painting can thus be read as both an elegy for what was lost and a hope for what remained.

>e period between the end of the World War I and his death was diLcult for Tanner. He lost his beloved wife in 63:; and suVered Fnancial setbacks during the Great Depression. During this time, he was most suc-cessful in re-creating familiar subjects in a new light—and experimenting with technique and materials. Two of his monumental eVorts from this phase are Daniel in the Lions’ Den (ca. 63A,–6,) and Nicodemus Visiting Jesus (63:,; plate 6A6). >e mystical blue palette that we have

come to associate with Tanner is present in a series of works from the 63:As, including Moses in the Bullrushes (63:6; plate 3:), Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane (the Sleeping Disciples) (ca. 63:7; plate 3;), and !e !ree Wise Men (63:;; plate 3?).

In the 63:As, Tanner began to experiment with mix-ing oil and tempera together on the same canvas, with examples being Sodom and Gomorrah (ca. 63:A–:9; plate 37), Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (63:3–7A; plate 6A:), and !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco) (ca. 637A; plate 6A7). >ese last paintings form a very dis-tinct body in Tanner’s work and reveal his innovations in technique. It seems that his response to modernism was not to lean toward abstraction, or to abandon his former subject matter, but to experiment with diVer-ent materials in order to create new emotional eVects in his paintings. Tanner took copious notes on his experi-mentation with technique and jotted down recipes on the back of his paintings and on scraps of paper—now housed in the Archives of American Art—which taken together have allowed contemporary conservation sci-entists to re-create Tanner’s material practice.

In 6378, when James Porter was facilitating the pur-chase of Return from the Cruci$xion (6378; plate 6A8) for Howard University, Tanner wrote to him saying, “>e Fgure groups have from the Frst gone rather well, except the Mary and St. John, these I have painted over several times—what you say about the landscape is I hope true, Palestine always impressed me as the back-ground for a great tragedy.”GRQ Porter later wrote that Tanner’s unusual mixture of tempera and oil in combi-nation “allowed him to build up a particular surface or to develop the same in rough textures or in the mode of basso relievo.”GGR In preparation for this painting, Tanner made the marvelous conté crayon and charcoal sketch Study for Mary, Return from the Cruci$xion (6377; plate 6A;). >e diVerences between sketch and Fnished paint-ing are remarkable. >e former reveals the quality of the artist’s draftsmanship, while the latter showcases how Tanner’s experimental materials allowed him to create rough, highly built-up landscapes. >e contrast suggests that while he used traditional academic techniques to begin his compositions, the Fnal results were the prod-ucts of years of experimentation and thus a hybrid of modern technique and traditional subject matter.

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Henry Ossawa Tanner died in 637, and was buried alongside his wife in Sceaux, Hauts-de-Seine, outside Paris. He never could have predicted that he would become an iconic Fgure in the history of American art. But he could have looked back with pride on a life of spectacular successes, such as the inclusion of his paint-ings in the great museums and galleries of the United States and France; more than a decade as the leader of an international artists’ colony in northern France; a career as a technical innovator who used modern paint-ing techniques to create a transcendent practice that to this day deFes easy classiFcation; and Fnally, his sta-tus as America’s preeminent religious artist during the height of the genre’s popularity.

Conclusions: After Tanner

Tanner had a profound inIuence on his French peers as well as on African American artists who followed in his footsteps. Students who closely adhered to his path while studying at PAFA included May Howard Jackson (enrolled 63AA–63A6), Meta Warrick Fuller (63A8–,), Henry Jones (63A,–6A), Julian Abele (63A:–7), Lenwood Morris (63A,–69), and Laura Wheeler Waring (63A8–6;). Tanner served not only as an inspiration for the artists who came after him, but also to members of the American public for whom works such as !e Banjo Lesson became a familiar and beloved image (Fg. 9A, p. 89). After Tanner’s death, his paintings came to be seen not merely as works of art but as icons of community.

Some of the most evocative images of Tanner’s paintings are Charles “Teenie” Harris’s photographs of Christ and His Mother Studying the Scriptures (plate ;3).GGG In the years around 639A, Harris, a photographer for the Pittsburgh Courier, took more than ninety photographs of the painting at the Centre Avenue YMCA. One of the most powerful pictures is Two Men Unveiling Henry O. Tanner Painting “Christ and His Mother” (Fg. :,).GGH For years, Harris would photograph community leaders, debutantes, musicians, and politicians posing proudly in front of the canvas. Christ and His Mother Studying the Scriptures, created before the First World War in a small seafront town in France by an African American artist born in Pittsburgh, would go on to hang in a department store in Philadelphia before serving for many years as a beacon of community and pride in one of Pittsburgh’s birthplaces of African American activism. It would Fnally come to rest on a wall in the Dallas Museum of Art.

Figure :,. Charles “Teenie” Harris, Two Men Unveiling Henry O. Tanner Painting “Christ and His Mother,”

with Musicians in the Foreground, Centre Avenue YMCA ca. 637;–;A. Black and white Agfa safety Flm, 9 U ; in. Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA, Heinz Family Fund, :AA6.7;.6637 © :AA9 Carnegie Museum of Art, Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive.

!"#$%6. Henry O. Tanner, “An Artist’s Autobiography,” !e Advance, March

:A, 6367, :A6:.:. Examples of studies of Tanner as a progenitor Fgure include essays

in this volume and the :AA, exhibition Henry Ossawa Tanner and His In%uence in America at the Baltimore Museum of Art. >roughout this catalogue, I use the word expatriate to signify a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than those of his or her upbringing or legal residence. I do not suggest that Henry Ossawa Tanner ever abandoned or denied his American citizenship.

7. Frances K. Pohl, “Precursor to the Harlem Renaissance: Henry Ossawa Tanner,” in Framing America: A Social History of American Art (New York: >ames & Hudson, :AA:), 7;:–;;.

9. Kymberly N. Pinder, “Review of Black Representation and Western Survey Textbooks,” Art Bulletin ?6, no. 7 (September 6333): ;77.

;. Rae Alexander-Minter, “>e Tanner Family: A Grandniece’s Chron-icle,” in Henry Ossawa Tanner, ed. Dewey F. Mosby (Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art; New York: Rizzoli, 6336), :,.

8. >e extensive scholarship of Rae Alexander-Minter has docu-mented the exceptional Tanner family history, including their intellectual leadership in the city of Philadelphia and elsewhere in the United States, over several generations. See Alexander-Minter, :;.

,. Dewey F. Mosby, Across Continents and Cultures: !e Art and Life of Henry Ossawa Tanner (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 633;), 6A.

?. Marcus Bruce, Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual Biography (New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, :AA:), 96.

3. Alexander-Minter, :,.

9: /#*$&-@+*/&#

6A. According to the PAFA Archives, the Frst registered African American student at PAFA was M.SC. Haywood in 6?,8.

66. Robert Douglass Jr. exhibited in PAFA’s twenty-third annual exhi-bition. For more on Douglass and PAFA, see footnote 8; in Steven L. Jones, “A Keen Sense of the Artistic: African American Material Culture in 63th-Century Philadelphia,” International Review of Afri-can American Art 6:, no. : (633;). An article from the 6?3As mentions Douglass having “access” to the Pennsylvania Academy: “Robert M. Douglass, a brother of Sarah M. Douglass and for Ffty years a teacher in the Institute for Colored Youth, was a portrait painter of some merit. Studying in his earlier days under David B. Bowser, he afterwards continued his studies with private tuition and by access to the School of Design and the Academy of the Fine Arts.” “Some Colored Artists: Men Who Have Made >eir Mark in the World of Art,” Times (Philadelphia), February 66, 6?3A, 8.

6:. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, ;8.67. Jones, :A.69. Tanner wrote this in a letter to Howard art historian and artist

James A. Porter. See Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, :36n67.6;. Jones, ::.68. Letter from Tanner to James Amos Porter, cited in Constance P.

Uzelac, “James Amos Porter Meets Henry Ossawa Tanner,” Inter-national Review of African American Art :A, no. 7 (:AA;): ;.

6,. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 8A.6?. H. O. Tanner, “>e Story of an Artist’s Life, Part I,” World’s Work 6?,

no. : ( June 63A3): 66887.63. Tanner, “>e Story of an Artist’s Life, Part I,” 66887.:A. Tanner, “>e Story of an Artist’s Life, Part I,” 6688;.:6. Tanner, “>e Story of an Artist’s Life, Part I,” 6688;.::. Joseph Pennell, Adventures of an Illustrator Mostly in Following His

Authors in American & Europe (Boston: Little, Brown and Com-pany, 63:;), ;9.

:7. For information on Stidum and Tanner and their participation in PAFA’s 6??9 Annual, see Jones, :7.

:9. Tanner, “>e Story of an Artist’s Life, Part I,” 6688;.:;. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, ;,.:8. Tanner, “>e Story of an Artist’s Life, Part I,” 6688;.:,. Tanner mentions teaching there in a letter to Porter. See Uzelac, 8.:?. >is painting was gifted to the university by Crogman’s daughter:

“Gifts to the Trevor Arnett Library,” !e Atlanta University Bulletin (December 638;): ::.

:3. >ough not nocturnes, the Terra Foundation’s Les Invalides (6?38) and the National Gallery of Art’s !e Seine (ca. 63A:) are further examples of this genre of intimate urban landscapes.

7A. Gabriel P. Weisberg, Against the Modern: Dagnan-Bouveret and the Transformation of the Academic Tradition (New York: Dahesh Museum of Art, :AA:), 3;.

76. Indeed, American artists had been traveling to Brittany for decades. See David Sellin, Americans in Brittany and Normandy, #&'(–#)#( (Phoenix: Phoenix Art Museum, 63?:).

7:. “>e Negro in Art: H.SO. Tanner’s Latest Triumph,” A.M.E. Church Review 69 ( July 6?3,): 68,.

77. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 667.79. “Art Notes,” Daily Evening Telegraph (Philadelphia), April :?, 6?39, 66.7;. For more on !e Banjo Lesson and !e !ankful Poor, see Judith Wil-

son, “Lifting the Veil: Henry O. Tanner’s !e Banjo Lesson and !e !ankful Poor,” Contributions in Black Studies, nos. 3/6A (633A–3:): 76–;9.

78. From a statement in Tanner’s hand, undated, Files, Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, Philadelphia. Quoted in Mosby, Across Conti-nents and Cultures, 76.

7,. For in-depth discussions of this imagery, see Leo G. Mazow and Sarah Burns, Picturing the Banjo (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, :AA;).

7?. Amy Kurtz, “ ‘Look-Well to the Ways of the Household, and Eat Not the Bread of Idleness’: Individual, Family and Community

in Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Spinning by Firelight—the Boyhood of George Washington Gray,” Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin (633,–3?): ;8.

73. For a compelling alternate interpretation of Tanner’s !e Banjo Les-son, with a focus on the painting’s conception and reception, along with a discussion of the patronage of Robert Ogden, see George Dimock, “Protest and Patronage: A Reappraisal of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s !e Banjo Lesson” (forthcoming).

9A. Eakins and his students were using photography as an aid in con-structing paintings by the time Tanner was studying at PAFA. See, for example, Eakins’s !e Cruci$xion (6??A), Philadelphia Museum of Art. For Eakins and photography, see Susan Danly and Cheryl Leibold, Eakins and the Photograph: Works by !omas Eakins and His Circle in the Collection of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Washington, DC: Published for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts by Smithsonian Institution Press, 6339); and Cheryl Lei-bold and Kathleen A. Foster, Writing about Eakins: !e Manuscripts in Charles Bregler’s !omas Eakins Collection (Philadelphia: Pub-lished for the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts by University of Pennsylvania Press, 63?3).

96. Will South, “A Missing Question Mark: >e Unknown Henry Ossawa Tanner,” Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide ?, no. : (Autumn :AA3): Fg. ?, www.63thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/autumnA3/a-missing-question-mark. See also “Dis heah’s a fus’-class thing ter work o" bad tempers wid,” an illustration by Henry Ossawa Tanner for Harper’s Young People 68, no. ,78 (December ;, 6?37): ?6.

9:. One of Tanner’s few other remaining sculptures is a relief bust of AME Church founders Richard and Sarah Allen, in the collection of the historic Mother Bethel Church in Philadelphia. Detailed records relating to the work’s commission are in Tanner’s letters held at the University of Pennsylvania Archives, Philadelphia. Alexander Papers: Papers of or Relating to Henry Ossawa Tanner (6?;3–637,).

97. M. Rachel Arauz, “Identity and Anonymity in Henry Ossawa Tan-ner’s Portrait of the Artist’s Mother,” Rutgers Art Review 63 (:AA6): ;A.

99. Arauz, ;:.9;. Arauz, 9?.98. Mosby, Across Continents and Cultures, 7?.9,. “Artist Tanner in America,” A.M.E. Church Review 69 (October

6?3,): :,3. >e location of this work is unknown. It is entirely pos-sible that Wanamaker owned the painting, though it is not listed in any of the painting inventories in the Wanamaker papers.

9?. Harrison Morris to Henry Tanner, April 68, 6?3,, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) Archives, Philadelphia, PA. Henry Ossawa Tanner File, 6??;–63A9. Papers.

93. Paris Salon Catalogues ca. 6?3?–63A;, annotated by Henry O. Tan-ner at the request of Harrison S. Morris, PAFA Archives. More than 6:A pages of newly discovered letters between Tanner and Morris, housed in the Princeton University Library, illuminate moments in the lives of the two men as they organized Tanner’s Frst solo exhibition of religious art in 63A? at the American Art Galleries in New York City. >ere is also a series of intimate letters from Tan-ner to Morris describing the conditions and deprivations of France during World War I. Harrison S. Morris Papers, Box 6:8, Folder 6A, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library.

;A. Not illustrated in the present volume is Hermann Dudley Mur-phy’s Henry Ossawa Tanner, ca. 6?38, oil on canvas, :?[ 63[ in., >e Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection.

;6. For an in-depth discussion of religious art in nineteenth-century France, including a history of naturalism, see Michael Paul Driskel, Representing Belief: Religion, Art, and Society in Nineteenth-Century France (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 633:).

;:. See, for example, David Morgan, “American Holy Land: Tissot in the National Context,” in Prodigal Son: James Tissot and the “Life of Christ,” ed. Judith F. Dolkart (New York: Brooklyn Museum, :AA3), 93–88.

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;7. See Kelly J. Baker, “Henry Ossawa Tanner: Race, Religion, and Visual Mysticism” (MA thesis, Florida State University, :AA7); Alan C. Braddock, “Painting the World’s Christ: Tanner, Hybridity, and the Blood of the Holy Land,” Nineteenth-Century Art World-wide 7, no. : (Autumn :AA9), www.63thc-artworldwide.org/index.php/autumnA9/:3?-painting-the-worlds-christ-tanner-hybridity-and-the-blood-of-the-holy-land; Marcus Bruce, Henry Ossawa Tanner; Daniel Burke, “Henry Ossawa Tanner’s ‘La Sainte-Marie,’ ” Smithsonian Studies in American Art :, no. : (Spring 63??): 89–,7; Jennifer J. Harper, “>e Early Religious Paintings of Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Study of the InIuences of Church, Family, and Era,” American Art 8, no. 9 (633:): 8?–?;; Kymberly N. Pinder, “ ‘Our Father, God; Our Brother, Christ; or Are We Bastard Kin?’: Images of Christ in African American Painting,” African American Review 76, no. : (633,): ::7–77; and Kristin Schwain, Signs of Grace: Religion and American Art in the Gilded Age (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, :AA?).

;9. Laura Morowitz, “A Passion for Business: Wanamaker’s, Munkácsy, and the Depiction of Christ,” Art Bulletin 36, no. : ( June :AA3): 63,. On Wanamaker’s department store empire, see William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York: Pantheon Books, 6337).

;;. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 6,9.;8. Dagnan-Bouveret had a solo exhibition at the Art Institute in 63A6.

Catalogue of Works by P.*A. Dagnan-Bouveret: A Loan Exhibition: March # to March +,, #)(# (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 63A6), avail-able online at www.artic.edu/aic/libraries/pubs/63A6/AIC63A6Dag-nanBouveret_comb.pdf. Tanner showed at the Art Institute as early as 6?3? with the Annunciation, and it was included in Catalogue of a Special Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture by Six American Artists Residing in France (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 63A?). In 6?33, Tanner began showing at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh, and in 63A8 his Frst work was purchased for the Carnegie’s collection. Dagnan-Bouveret’s art was shown in the 6?3? Carnegie International and was purchased for the collection in that same year.

;,. Catalogue of Works of P.*A. Dagnan-Bouveret.;?. All translations in this essay are by the author from the original

French, which is included in endnotes. “Le plus sincère de tous ces essais, c’est sans doute le tableau de M. Tanner, Nicodème venant voir Jésus, et c’est par suite le plus propre à nous toucher, on vit apparaî-tre de cet artiste, il y a quelques années, une Résurrection de Lazare, aujourd’hui au Musée du Luxembourg, qui présentait de très séri-euses qualités sous une inIuence perceptible de Dagnan-Bouveret.” Gustave Soulier, “Les Salons,” Foi et vie ( January 8, 6?33): 68,.

;3. Helen Cole, “Henry O. Tanner, Painter,” Brush and Pencil 8, no. 7 ( June 63AA): 6A9–;. On the same subject, see also Jessie Fauset, “Henry Ossawa Tanner,” !e Crisis :,, no. 8 (April 63:9): :;?.

8A. “De Chavannes and Sargent: >ey Divide the Glory of >is Year’s Champ de Mars Exhibition,” New York Times, May 6,, 6?38, 6,.

86. Tanner, “>e Story of an Artist’s Life, Part II,” World’s Work 6?, no. 7 ( July 63A3): 66,,7. One wonders who this friend was. Dewey Mosby notes that Rodman Wanamaker saw the painting in Tanner’s studio before it was at the Salon and was so impressed with Lazarus when it debuted that he Fnanced Tanner’s visit to the Holy Land (Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 678–7?).

8:. >is light source will change later with Tanner’s Nicodemus.87. JeV Richmond-Moll analyzes Tanner’s placement of Christ on the

periphery of many of his religious paintings in “Meaning in the Margins: Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Biblical Pictures” (BA thesis, Princeton University, :A6A).

89. For example, one Salon critic wrote that “ces diverses oeuvres oVrent de solides qualities, mais aucune, sauf le Saint Lazare de Tanner, n’est bien personnelle.” Anna Girard, “Les Salons de 6?3,,” L’Avenir artistique et littéraire 8, no. 667 ( June 6?3,): 8.

8;. Letters between Morris and Tanner, January 67, 6?3?, PAFA Archives. Henry Ossawa Tanner File, 6??;–63A9.

88. Marcia M. Mathews, Henry Ossawa Tanner, American Artist, (Chi-cago: University of Chicago Press, 6383), ?A.

8,. >e scholarship on Orientalism is vast, from the foundational work of Edward Said and critiques of Homi K. Bhahba to the special-ized studies of Brian T. Allen and Holly Edwards in Noble Dreams, Wicked Pleasures: Orientalism in America, #&-(–#).( (Princeton: Princeton University Press, :AAA); and Roger Benjamin, Oriental-ist Aesthetics: Art, Colonialism, and French North Africa, #&&(–#).( (Berkeley: University of California Press, :AA7).

8?. For more on the cultural power of the belly dance and the Western construction of the “Orient” at turn-of-the-century world’s fairs, see Leila Kenney and Zaynep Celik, “Ethnography and Exhibi-tionism at the Expositions Universelles,” Assemblage, no. 67 (Decem-ber 633A): 7;–;?. For more on the Chicago fair, see Reid Badger, !e Great American Fair: !e World’s Columbian Exposition and Ameri-can Culture (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 63,3); and Neil Harris, Wim de Wit, James Gilbert, and Robert Rydell, Grand Illusions: Chicago’s World’s Fair of #&). (Chicago: Chicago Historical Society, 6337.)

83. For information on the formation of the society, see Benjamin, ;,–,?.

,A. Part of G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress. Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-matpc-A8876 (digi-tal Fle from original photo) LC-M786-7,8 (b&w Flm copy nega-tive); Call Number: LC-M78-7,8 [P&P]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

,6. >e object Fles at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston—which include correspondence between the museum’s curators of American art and Egyptian art—reveal extensive research that indicates this is indeed the mosque in Tanner’s painting.

,:. See object Fles, MFA.,7. See the Archive of the GriLth Institute for rights and reproductions,

www.griLth.ox.ac.uk/perl/gi-em-lmakedeta.pl?&sid=6:,63;8;,,-,6.:7A.6:6.6:3&6=Cairo&7=x&en=be68?, page created >ursday, Apr :: 6?::;:66 :A6A © Copyright GriLth Institute, :A6A.

,9. For a discussion of earlier American nineteenth-century depictions of the Holy Land as well as a brief but cogent discussion of Tan-ner, see John Davis, !e Landscape of Belief: Encountering the Holy Land in Nineteenth-Century American Art and Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 6338).

,;. Uzelac, 8.,8. H.SO. Tanner, “A Visit to the Tomb of Lazarus,” A.M.E. Church

Review 6; (6?3?): 7;3.,,. Negative LC-M7:-;9A (neg. badly damaged). Part of G. Eric and

Edith Matson Photograph Collection, Library of Congress. Repro-duction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-6763: (digital Fle from original photograph); Call Number: LOT 67,;8, no. 77 [cat. no. ;;9]. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.

,?. See, for a comparison image to Tanner’s Wailing Wall, Jerusalem (El-Kouds). Jews’ wailing place, uprightS/*American Colony, Jerusalem. American Colony ( Jerusalem). Photo Dept., 6?3?–6369, 6 negative: glass, dry plate ; 6A 6: in., G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection, Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-matpc-A88;6 (digi-tal Fle from original photo) LC-M786-7?3 (b&w Flm copy nega-tive) Rights Advisory: No known restrictions on publication. www.loc.gov/pictures/item/mpc:AA9AA,6:9/PP, Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. :A;9A, USA.

,3. American Art Galleries, Illustrated Catalogue of Religious Paintings by the Distinguished American Artist Mr. Henry O. Tanner on Exhibi-tion (New York: Little & Ives, 63A?).

?A. Rodman Wanamaker may have introduced Tanner to Munkácsy since John Wanamaker, his father, had purchased works by the art-ist. See Morowitz, 63;.

?6. >e tiles mentioned above could have been purchased from Munkác-sy’s studio, or they could have been brought back from Tanner’s travels in Egypt and Palestine in 6?3, and 6?3?. W.SS. Scarborough, “Henry

99 /#*$&-@+*/&#

Ossian [sic] Tanner,” !e Southern Workman 76, no. 6: (December 63A:): 886–,A.

?:. For more on the relationship between Tanner and Dagnan-Bouv-eret’s depiction of the Virgin, see Braddock, “Painting the World’s Christ,” and Burke, “Henry Ossawa Tanner’s ‘La Sainte-Marie.’ ”

?7. Vance >ompson, “American Artists in Paris,” Cosmopolitan :3, no. 6 (May 63AA): 63.

?9. See PAFA letters, Morris to Tanner, October 6?3?. Wanamaker purchased !e Annunciation and sold it to the Wilstach Collection (now the Philadelphia Museum of Art). PAFA letters, Morris to Ogden, March 6, 6?33. Wanamaker also owned Nicodemus before it was bought by PAFA.

?;. Robert C. Ogden to Henry Ossawa Tanner, July 6:, 63AA, Henry Ossawa Tanner Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

?8. PAFA letters, Morris to Tanner.?,. Garneriu is a family violin maker. >e name has diVerent spell-

ings: Garneri, Garnerius. Original French, “Pourquoi donc M. Tan-ner, qui nous avait habitués à le considérer comme un bel artisan d’oeuvres solides, aux tonalités enharmoniques, a-t-il eu la faiblesse d’exposer cette Musique capable de faire prendre en horreur toutes les virtuoses salonières? A-t-il vraiment vu une dame jouant du violoncelle avec un bras si mal dessiné? A-t-il eu le malheur de contempler un Guarneriu peint en rouge et un coussin vert qui renfermait à coup sûr beaucoup d’arsenic? Je le plains alors sans lui trouver une excuse plausible, car son talent est au-dessus d’une si laide aVaire.” Martial Teneo, “Salon de 63A:,” Le Monde artiste !éâtre, musique, beaux-arts, littérature [“puis” Journal illustré] 9:, no. :7 ( June 63A:): 78A.

??. >is fact was noticed Frst by Dewey Mosby, who left a note in the Fles at the Musée d’Orsay explaining that he believed there was a lost painting under the Emmaus painting. “Note pour Sylvie PatinS.S.S. M. Dewey Mosby.S.S.S. a eu l’attention attirée pour .S.S. Les pélerins d’Emmaus .S.S. par la présence d’une étiquette d’exposition sur le chassis d’une autre composition (dont l’emplacement est actu-ellement inconnue) du même artiste.” However, this fact has never been published, and when the earlier painting was included in the 6336 catalogue through black-and-white photography of the lost work, the location was listed as unknown.

?3. William R. Lester, “Henry O. Tanner, Exile for Art’s Sake,” Alexan-der’s Magazine ,, no. : (December 6;, 63A?): 83–,7.

3A. “Que le noir soit un homme comme nous, la question posée à Pie X par les journalistes nègres’ du Colorado le prouve: suLsamment; que la race noire soit capable de développement elle le démontre par les fortes individualités qu’elle a produites: Booker Washington, par exemple, que le président Roosevelt invitait à sa table; Edward W. Blyden, le savant professeur de Libéria, minister plénipotentiaire à Londres, ou encore ce Tanner dont un des tableaux est au Lux-embourg, et tant d’autres.” E. Allegret, “La Question noire; L’âme Nègre,” Foi et vie (63A9): 89–8,.

36. Cole, 6A7.3:. For a fascinating look at the popularity and modernist inIuence

of Fuller’s Salome, see Rhonda K. Garelick, Electric Salome: Loie Fuller’s Performance of Modernism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer-sity Press, :AA,).

37. Size according to the Wanamaker inventories. >e size is listed in the Sotheby’s Wanamaker sale catalogue as 6A’8” 69’?”. See Box 93, Folder 67, Inventories of Wanamaker art collection, Historical Society of Pennsylvania Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. John Wanamaker (6?7?–63::) Papers.

39. Box 93, Folder 67, Inventories of Wanamaker art collection, Histori-cal Society of Pennsylvania Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. John Wanamaker (6?7?–63::) Papers.

3;. Box 93, Folder 67, Inventories of Wanamaker art collection, Histori-cal Society of Pennsylvania Archives, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. John Wanamaker (6?7?–63::) Papers.

38. >ere the trail goes cold—Sotheby’s Parke-Bernet has no cata-logues of this sale and no records of who purchased the paintings.

3,. Mosby, Across Continents and Cultures, ;?.3?. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, :A6. See Tanner’s Entrance to the Cus-

toms House in Tangier, ca. 63A?.33. “Paintings by Henry O. Tanner,” New York Times, April 67, 6367,

SM69.6AA. Examples of these postcards abound in the Association Connais-

sance de l’histoire de l’Afrique contemporaine (ACHAC) collection at the Getty Research Institute Special Collections. >ese include: “Tanger—Jour du Marché,” “Tanger (Maroc) Marché du sel,” “Tanger—Au Grand Soco—Marché aux Legumes” (this last printed by Levy Fils & Cie, Paris), and “Scènes et Types—Marché Indigène.” Printed by the Compagnie Alsacience des Arts Photomecaniques, Strasbourg, all from Box 9, Tangiers, ZPC: AIM?, Cities and sites postcard collection, ACHAC collection at the Getty Research Institute Special Collections; “Gabès—Marché Arabe de Djora,” printed by Lévy et Neurdein Réunis, 99, rue Latellier, Paris; “Tanger, Groupe de Marocains—Coins de la Place du Marché,” printed by H. Gromeud of Tanger, from Box :, Folder :7, Marketplaces, 3,AA76, Cities and sites postcard collection, ACAC collection at the Getty Research Institute Special Collections; and “Tanger—La Douane,” Edit S.S I. Nahon, Au Chic, Tanger, from Box 6, Folder 83, Cities & Sites—Marocco—Tanger [Tangiers], ACHAC collection at the Getty Research Institute Special Collections.

6A6. See Box 9, folder Tangiers, ZPC: AIM?, Cities and sites postcard collection, ACHAC collection at the Getty Research Institute Spe-cial Collections.

6A:. Clara MacChesney, “A Poet-Painter of Palestine.” International Studio ;A, no. 63, ( July 6367): xiv.

6A7. Anonymous, :Ath century, Tangier, door to the Kasbah, ca. 6?3?–63:;, Stereoscopic Photograph, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France.

6A9. >e former painting could be dated as early as 63A; or as late as the 63:As, although considering it is an oil painting, rather than oil and tempera, this suggests it is from the prewar years.

6A;. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, :9:.6A8. Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, :99.6A,. >is painting is undoubtedly Old House, Neufchâteau, Vosges, which

was listed as location unknown in Mosby’s 6336 publication and which was shown at the Carnegie International in 63:6.

6A?. My explication of the painting is indebted to correspondence with Hélène Valance on May 8, :A6A.

6A3. Uzelac, 8.66A. Uzelac, ,.666. Charles “Teenie” Harris, Two Men Unveiling Henry O. Tanner

Painting “Christ and His Mother,” with musicians in foreground, Cen-tre Avenue YMCA, ca. 637;–;A, black and white: Agfa safety Flm, 9 x ; in., :AA6.7;.6637, Carnegie Museum of Art.

66:. “In 6?37, the Frst colored branch of the YMCA was opened on Wylie Avenue—when this facility was relocated to Centre Avenue more than ?,AAA people attended the cornerstone laying. >e Cen-tre Avenue Y was the very Frst building in Pittsburgh to provide social and recreational services to African Americans and is consid-ered the birthplace of practically every welfare agency for African Americans, including the Urban League and the National Associa-tion for the Advancement of Colored People. >e 63:As through the 63;As was a period of great activity at the Centre Street Y. It was one of the sole recreational facilities for African Americans in Pittsburgh.S.S.S. During the 637A’s and 639A’s, free symposiums were held at the Centre Avenue branch featuring speakers such as Mar-ian Anderson, Adam Clayton Powell and Dr. George Washington Carver. Audiences came from as far as Ohio and West Virginia.” (From the YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh Website, www.ymcaof-pittsburgh.org/history.asp, accessed July 66, :A6A.)

6;8

Unveiling the complex construction of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s paintings oVers an intimate understanding of his artistic expression, visual

acuity, and innovative style. Tanner’s experimental use of materials and eccentric techniques are hallmarks of his paintings, yet such elements may also be contribut-ing to their deterioration. >is unprecedented compara-tive study attempts to unlock some of the mysteries of Tanner’s work and to shed light on its present state of preservation. >e project was fostered by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) and facilitated by the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM). >e investigation focuses on the technical examination of Fve paintings in SAAM’s collection; the works range in date from the turn of the twentieth century, when Tanner was a successful artist experimenting with painting eVects and materials, to the end of his proliFc career. To supple-ment this analysis, other Tanner paintings from public and private collections were visually studied, institutional records were reviewed, and collaborative observations among conservators and historians were noted. Paint recipes from Tanner’s journals retained in the Archives of American Art were reconstructed and compared to samples from the Fve paintings.

Tanner’s oeuvre evolved both pictorially and aes-thetically throughout his career. He depicted an array of subjects and imagery: seascapes, portraits, black genre scenes, studies of the Middle East, and abstract religious and biblical narratives. >e evolution of his style exhib-its an equally dramatic change in the very appearance of the paint in his paintings. >e impetus for this research was to examine the artist’s idiosyncratic use of paint-ing eVects and materials that appear most prevalent in paintings created from the middle of his career onward. >e analysis was designed to address three goals: to document modiFcations in Tanner’s working methods over time; to determine whether speciFc materials, paint applications, or layering strategies can be attributable to Tanner’s working methods; and, Fnally, to investigate the eVect Tanner’s experimental use of materials and methods may have on the preservation of his paintings.

>e Fve paintings selected from SAAM’s collec-tion include Study for the Annunciation (ca. 6?3?; plate 73), Salome (ca. 63AA; plate ;A), Head of a Jew in Pal-estine (6?33, reworked 636?–:A; plate 98), !e Fisher-man’s Return (636,, reworked 6363), Flight into Egypt (ca. 6368–::; plate ?7), and !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco) (ca. 637A; plate 6A7). >ese works

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Pursuit of the Ideal EVect!e Materials and Techniques of Henry Ossawa Tanner

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were chosen as representative of the artist’s late oeuvre based on their construction materials, subject matter, and accessibility within the given time frame and scope of this project. >e analytical techniques used for the study include cross-sectional analysis, X-radiography, infrared reIectography (IRR), examination in ultravi-olet light (UV), scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM/EDS), X-ray Iuores-cence (XRF), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), pyrolysis-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (Py-GC-MS), X-ray diVraction (XRD), and reIectance transformation imaging (RTI). >is research serves as a preliminary look at this complex and highly creative painter with the realization that a more comprehensive technical investigation spanning Tanner’s entire career is warranted.

>e artist completed preliminary studies and sketches before beginning some of his major works. Examination of the paintings associated with the pres-ent technical study, however, suggests that he may not have used underdrawings during the period under review. Analysis with IRR, which detects carbon black beneath layers of paint, failed to reveal any evidence of underdrawings. Furthermore, X-radiographs of the paintings indicate that the compositions continually evolved and that the images do not appear to rely on the hard outlines one would Fnd if an underdrawing had been present.

Tanner appears to have often cropped, reworked, or reused earlier paintings in the creation of newer works. Portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Atherton Curtis with Still-life was cropped from Christ at the Home of Lazarus. >e artist opened up the upper tacking margin of Salome to make the Fgure taller, and he added extra canvas to the top of !e Resurrection of Lazarus (6?38; plate :3). Salome was painted on the verso of the abandoned Moses and the Burning Bush. In addition, when SAAM con-servators removed Salome from its stretcher, they found the fully realized Fishermen at Sea (ca. 6367; plate ,3) employed as a loose lining. Finally, the Musée d’Orsay’s !e Pilgrims of Emmaus (63A;; plate ;7) was painted over !e Cello Lesson (ca. 63A:; Fg. :6, p. 7;).

Tanner’s earliest paintings reIect his largely self-taught style and are quite orthodox in their execution.

His acceptance into the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts atelier of the great American painter >omas Eakins provided him with a more traditional educa-tion in both indirect and direct painting techniques. >e indirect method involves the construction of an image from an underpainting that is then further modi-Fed with additional layers of paint, often in the form of transparent glazes and translucent scumbles. Conversely, direct paint application attempts to achieve simultane-ous optical eVects, at least within the top layer of paint, without the visible inIuence of underlying paint. A common form of direct painting is called wet-into-wet, in which adjoining passages of paint are added before previous applications have dried, allowing the physical mixture of colors directly on the surface of the painting.

After moving to France in 6?36, Tanner enrolled in the Académie Julian and began studying with the painters Jean-Joseph Benjamin Constant and Jean-Paul Laurens. Tanner’s work of this period tends to be directly painted. As he matured, he seems to have gravi-tated toward indirect techniques, as evidenced by his extensive use of glazing on the later paintings. >e art-ist may have been inIuenced by his formal studies, but he does not appear to be indebted to either his Ameri-can or French instructors for his painting method.

Tanner’s early work mainly relies on direct paint application—both wet-into-wet and wet-on-dry—with a judicious use of glazing. Study for the Annunciation (plate 9A) is a late nineteenth-century sketch for the full-sized 6?3? painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. >e preparatory image was mostly created with rapidly applied wet-into-wet layers. Tanner depicted the angel as an organic, vertical, radiant shaft of light. >e representation is rendered in thickly applied, stringy lead white paint. >is layer was then glazed with bright yellow and subsequently scraped down to uncover the brilliant white abstraction of the angel beneath. >e techniques used to create the small sketch diVer from those Tanner used for his full-scale paintings; however, it does reveal the use of additive and subtractive work-ing methods that become more prevalent in the artist’s later works.

Clues from the artist’s journals combined with sci-entiFc analysis suggest that Tanner’s painting media evolved over time. Early in his career, Tanner used oil

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contour lines here are likely from the artist’s ca. 636?–:A reworking of the painting. Tanner’s outlines evolve from dry, dragged strokes to much more Iuid applica-tion in his later works. Visual examinations of earlier paintings—including the Salon masterpieces !e Resur-rection of Lazarus, !e Annunciation (6?3?), and Nicode-mus (6?33; plate 9;)—revealed similar paint application. >e smooth brushwork of Lazarus is achieved by wet-into-wet, especially in the meticulously painted faces. !e Annunciation is rendered in the same way and dis-plays only a minimal amount of glazing or scumbling. Cross sections taken from Salome, a contemporaneous picture, show evidence of wet-into-wet paint mixing in the swirling blend of pigments visible in layer four of the sample (Fg. ?6). PAFA’s earlier Nicodemus diVers slightly by the presence of much wet-on-dry treatment and passages of a roughly applied, dragged paint that is characteristic of some of Tanner’s works from as early as the 6?3As. >e proliFc use of this dragging technique in Nicodemus, as well as in other paintings, may result from Tanner’s substantial reworking of his composi-tions, as evidenced by the textural pentimenti often vis-ible in his work.G

It is interesting to note that, with the exception of Study for the Annunciation, all of the analyzed paintings contain substantially more paint layers than would be expected to achieve such surface eVects. Tanner’s lay-ering became even more complex as he moved toward more indirect painting methods. Nineteen layers were found to make up an area of Iat blue on Fisherman’s Return (Fgs. ?6–?:). Cross sections from paintings dat-ing from his mid- to late career show several tiers of single-colored paints as well as a signiFcant amount of glazing in the uppermost layers. Although one could easily explain this layering as a characteristic feature in Tanner’s methods, one should consider the fact that all the paintings examined in this study were in the art-ist’s studio at the time of his death. He, therefore, had ample opportunity to revise them, possibly repeatedly. Analysis of works sold during Tanner’s lifetime could establish whether this complicated layering structure is a consistent hallmark found in his work.

Tanner’s early paintings exhibit controlled brush-work, while those from the turn of the century through the 636As display more robust, gestural brushstrokes.

paint with likely additions of natural varnish resin. From mid-career onward, the artist seems to have favored far more complex mixtures of oil, resins, and his own tem-pera formulations. Head of a Jew in Palestine was begun in 6?33 and reworked ca. 636?–:A. Tanner probably painted the face during the earlier campaign, using what appears to be a full-bodied, oil-based medium. Much of the modeling was done wet-into-wet, with details such as contour lines around the cheeks and mustache created by dragging a Fne brush across the dry paint layers in a drawing-like manner. Because bold outlines become more common in Tanner’s later paintings, the

Figure ?6. Cross-section detail showing nineteen media layers sampled from Henry Ossawa Tanner, Fisherman’s Return n.d.

:; \ U 63 T in. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC Gift of Dr. Nicholas Zervas, 63?7.3;.:6:.

Figure ?A. Cross-section detail showing nine media layers sampled from Henry Ossawa Tanner, Salome ca. 63AA.

See plate ;A for full image.

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Even later works, such as Flight into Egypt, !e Fisher-man’s Return, and !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco), show a greater stylistic change. While Tanner does appear to have employed a brush for his Fnal out-lines, there are few other artifacts of brush use on the paintings produced mid-career and later. Tanner seems to have moved away from standard paint surfaces in his mature work. His late pictures reveal the use of nonstan-dard tools to apply, manipulate, sculpt, and even remove paint from surfaces. Examples of this evolving method can be seen in the X-radiographs of paintings as early as Salome, where sections of the underpaint were applied with an unknown tool that left thick concave ribbons of paint. >e channels are the size of a Fngertip but lack any evidence of a Fngerprint or distinguishable impres-sion that could tell how the form was created.

Tanner’s experiments in paint media are of even greater interest. >e artist began the use of interlayered oil and tempera paint as early as the late 636As. Techni-cally, modern use of the term “tempera” is restricted to paints bound in an emulsion.H Egg tempera is the most commonly recognized form of tempera and is a natural oil-in-water emulsion. Tempera emulsions are initially diluted in water but become water-insoluble when dry. A reverse emulsion, in which the water is suspended in an oily phase, is also possible. >is type of emulsion is diluted with a solvent, such as turpentine. Emulsion paints behave and appear very diVerently than do single-phase binders, such as oils or watercolors, which enticed artists of the early twentieth century. >ey experimented with emulsions in order to uncover the “lost secrets of the old masters” as well as to explore novel eVects.J

Tanner recorded his testing of oil and tempera mix-tures directly on the back of some of his paintings, two of which are in the American Art collection. To para-phrase the note written in pencil on the crossbar of Fish-erman’s Return: >e work was executed in 636, using oil paint. Two years later, it was retouched in tempera soap and then glazed in oil paint. It was Fnally completed in tempera Fve days later in July 6363. On a note dated “Jan :8th 63:A” and tucked into the stretcher of Head of a Jew in Palestine, Tanner conveys that it was originally painted in oil paint and allowed to dry for two or three years, after which the surface was rubbed with an emul-sion before the background was painted in tempera. >e

Figure ?7. Detail of crawling paint on surface of Henry Ossawa Tanner, !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco), ca. 637A.

See plate 6A7 for full image.

Figure ?:. Cross-section detail showing seven transparent interlayers sampled from Henry Ossawa Tanner,

Fisherman’s Return n.d.

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formulations of these early tempera paints are unknown; however, Tanner’s journals from 637: and 637;–78 record speciFc recipes as well as annotations and frequent revi-sions.K >ere are proportional diVerences between his recipes, but ingredients such as parchment glue, mastic varnish, oil, syrup obtained from soaking Iaxseeds in water, and small amounts of lanolin and alcohol remain constant. >e tempera emulsion was to be applied 6:6 with color, presumably dry pigments. Tanner’s 637; rec-ipe states that the mixture should be put down while warm.M >is detail was not noted in his 637: recipe, but the author’s reconstruction of this tempera paint indi-cates that heat is required to apply it eVectively.

Tanner’s use of an emulsion containing parchment glue and oil was not unique. In 63::, the painter and teacher Ernest Percyval Tudor-Hart (6?,7–63;9) gave lectures to England’s Society of Mural and Decora-tors and Painters in Tempera, and he recommended a parchment glue and linseed-oil emulsion.N Both Tan-ner and Tudor-Hart studied at the Académie Julian in the 6?3As, where they likely met. In 6376, the year before Tanner’s Frst recorded recipe, Jacques Maroger and M. George Mourier-Malouf presented to the French Academy of Sciences a similar recipe, stating that it was the lost secret of the Flemish masters.O

While some aspects of Tanner’s temperas do resem-ble published formulas, his journals include ingredients that seem unique to him, as no other reference for extractions from Iaxseeds has been found. >e inclusion

of lanolin is curious, although Max Doerner does men-tion that some suppliers of artists’ materials may have added it to contribute Iexibility in canvas grounds.P Lanolin also may have served to promote emulsiFcation of the disparate ingredients.

Our reconstructions of the 637: and 637; tempera recipes were mixed with dry pigments and applied to a canvas primed with a lead-white oil ground, both with and without an isolating layer of animal glue. >e recipes were also painted on a sheet of polyester Flm for sampling and scientiFc analysis using FTIR and GC-MS. Spectra from these samples were compared to those taken from Tanner’s paintings. Samples from !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains) closely matched that of the reconstruction of Tanner’s 637: recipe. Samples from !e Fisherman’s Return had spectra resembling the reconstructions but with varying proportions of key ingredients; this similarity is of interest since recipes from Tanner’s earlier periods are unavailable.

Another distinguishing feature seen in many of the above-mentioned cross sections is the extensive inter-leaFng of transparent layers. While the use of isolating varnishes to resaturate a paint surface or to separate one layer from another is not unique, the number of trans-parent layers found in these cross sections is remark-able. Cross sections viewed under ultraviolet light reveal Iuorescent, unpigmented layers such as those seen in Fgure ?7. >is sample, taken from Fisherman’s Return, contains at least seven transparent intermediate layers within the observed twenty-one layers. Cross sections taken from diVerent areas of the same painting reveal that the transparent layers are not uniform in number or placement. Notations in Tanner’s journals and docu-ments suggest that these intermediate layers may con-sist of animal glue, mastic varnish, or even the emulsion Tanner used as his tempera binder.Q >ough he may have seen these layers as a means to facilitate color matching, it is just as likely that he applied them to promote adhe-sion of his tempera to the oil paint. Reconstructions of Tanner’s water-based tempera paints beaded up when applied to an oil paint surface. His placement of an emulsion or animal glue on the painted surface would have permitted a smoother application of the temperas. Again, Tanner’s reconstructed paint was easier to put on the glue-covered ground.

Figure ?9. Paint-outs by artist on reverse of Henry Ossawa Tanner, Study for !e Annunciation, ca. 6?3?. See plate 73 for full image.

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Close examination of !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco) reveals passages of stringy or crawling paint used to create amorphous highlights, which do not resemble traditionally applied paint (Fg. ?9). >ese layers Ioat above the earlier paint applica-tions without really wetting to them. Similar crawl-ing eVects were observed in the reconstructed tempera experiments. Such evidence may suggest that Tanner intentionally omitted the isolating layer of emulsion or glue whenever he sought to create this visual eVect.

Transparent green glazes are found on many of Tan-ner’s paintings and—because these Fnishes contain a matrix of cracks with a glasslike fracture—often do not resemble ordinary oil glazes. >e reverse of the Study for the Annunciation displays a variety of these green glazes (Fg. ?;). As the small sketch was in Tanner’s studio until his death, it is surmised that the artist used the reverse of the panel to test glaze formulas. >e word “crack” is written near one of these paint-outs, in what appears to be Tanner’s handwriting, with a drawn arrow pointing to an actual crack within the glaze. ScientiFc analysis of these glazes revealed the presence of a resin, likely mas-tic, and a possible protein but showed no presence of oil. Resinous layers, with or without a proteinaceous com-ponent, become quite brittle over time, and this break-down could explain the fracturing of Tanner’s glazes.

>e artist appears to have regularly built up the back-grounds of his paintings far more substantially than the foreground objects; for example, he would paint the sky or a building in much higher relief than the Fgures in front. Tanner’s later works are both texturally and sculpturally created in paint. >e shepherd and the sheep in !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco) are two such exam-ples. >e physicality of paint and application method are worth noting, as forms are often constructed using thick paint rendered in high relief without evidence of a brush-stroke or palette knife. Despite the consistency of the paint, each form has soft, sloping edges. It appears that Tanner produced this eVect by daubing a heavy-bodied paint onto the surface. >e paint remained in relief, yet self-leveled, or was physically reduced enough to erase any evidence of the implement used to apply it. >ese small daubs remain unmixed and separate from each other, a characteristic noted in encaustic painting where the working time is limited and the paint sets quickly.

Although no wax was found in any of the samples that were analyzed, it is possible that this waxlike eVect comes from Tanner’s use of a tempera recipe containing large proportions of animal glue. Animal glues gel at room temperature, and Tanner’s reconstructed temperas do, indeed, quickly gel and require heating to be employed eVectively. >ese isolated paint daubs appear to corre-spond to the pebbled or dotted underpainting often seen in the X-radiographs of his later works.

Tanner also made use of both additive and reductive techniques in his late paintings. Close examination of !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco) shows that the highlights on the tops of the cliVs were created by scrap-ing back through darker layers to reveal lighter, lower lay-ers. X-radiography and IRR indicate that Tanner used an abrasive, like sand paper, to uncover these lower layers.

>ere are many examples of Tanner scoring into already set or dried paint. On Flight into Egypt, the art-ist built up the perfect dome-shaped moon by using substantial amounts of lead-white paint and then scor-ing a circular outline into the surface to accentuate the shape and prominence of the form (Fg. ?;). Similar scoring can be found outlining Fgures, landscapes, and architectural elements in many of Tanner’s works.

Another feature of Tanner’s method is his frequent use of a painted outline that follows the periphery of his paintings; it was found on Salome and Flight into Egypt as well as on many other paintings in the American Art

Figure ?;. Detail of moon from Henry Ossawa Tanner, Flight into Egypt ca. 6368–::. See plate ?7 for full image.

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Museum and in other examined collections. A simi-lar outline was observed on Tanner’s watercolors and drawings. >is compositional device is generally used to delineate multiple drawings on a larger piece of paper as a cropping guideline or to deFne the foldover edge of a canvas that is to be stretched. >ese do not appear to be Tanner’s motives on the works examined, and his continued use of the outline is curious.

A number of analytical techniques were used to characterize Tanner’s pigments. Both lead white and zinc white were found on all paintings. >e zinc white paint used for portions of Head of a Jew in Palestine exhibits an extremely brilliant green Iuorescence when viewed in long-wave ultraviolet light (Fg. ?8). >is same Iuorescence was only sparsely visible on !e Fisherman’s Return and does not occur on any of the other paintings that were examined. >is Fnding suggests that Tanner employed zinc white from more than one source.GR On his later paintings, he often used lead white in the lower layers but seems to have pre-ferred zinc white in the upper layers, especially when

building texture or creating impasto. Tanner may have selectively chosen zinc white for certain impasto eVects because it is less likely to darken.GG Zinc white is also more transparent than other whites, and this may explain why Tanner used it in the translucent paint and scumbles seen in cross sections of !e Fish-erman’s Return. >e lower half of Flight into Egypt and the Fgures of !e Fisherman’s Return are constructed of daubs of radio-opaque paint, probably lead white. A pebbly or daublike application can clearly be seen in the X-radiographs (Fg. ?,), revealing a compositional distinction between the mid- and late-period pictures. >e thickly applied paint representing the shepherd and sheep in !e Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco) is invisible to X-rays, indicating that these Fgures were made with a diVerent white, likely zinc white. Yellow pigments were diLcult to determine, but the analysis suggests that Tanner used cadmium yel-low and Naples yellow, and possibly zinc, strontium, and barium yellows. Red lake, the only red pigment found during analysis, was often combined with other pigments to create more neutral colors. Surprisingly, few iron oxide earth pigments were discovered. With the exception of John the Baptist’s head in Salome, brown and neutral-colored areas were usually found to be mixtures of strongly hued pigments and bone black. Prominent blues and greens in both solid color and glazes distinguish Tanner’s mid- to late palette. >e artist relied heavily on cobalt and cerulean blues in the paintings examined. Cobalt blue is in most of his paint mixtures, even in those without an overall blue hue. His blue-green glazes appear to be mixtures of cobalt blue or cerulean with viridian. Few deFnitive examples of ultramarine blue were found, but traces were noted in the earliest works, Study for the Annun-ciation and Salome. Viridian, a transparent chromium oxide green, was present on all Fve of the paintings analyzed, and it is a component of some of the green glazes. It is possible that Tanner also used an organic green or yellow colorant in at least one of his green glazes, as SEM analysis of the glazes on the back of Study for the Annunciation could Fnd no metallic ions associated with the colorant.

Preserving Tanner’s canvases can be problematic. While many of his works are in very good condition,

Figure ?8. Detail of Iuorescent paint observed under ultraviolet light of Henry Ossawa Tanner,

Head of a Jew in Palestine 6?33, reworked ca. 636?–:A. Oil on canvas, :9 U :6 T in. Smithsonian American Art Museum,

Washington, DC Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins, 63?7.3;.6?3. See plate 98 for full image.

687=@$'@/* &E *!" /-"(5 "EE"+*

conservation records from various institutions note similar problems. A common issue is insecurity of paint, either as separation between canvas and ground or as interlayer cleavage within the paint. Records also indi-cate that some of Tanner’s works are very sensitive to solvents often employed in conservation treatments. >e more layers used to create a painting, the greater likelihood that there will be some failure between them. Each successive layer of paint needs to have a physi-cal or chemical bond with the preceding layer. Tanner’s complex layers—combined with his experimental reci-pes and soluble layers of glue or resins—contribute to the instability of his paints.

An application technique used by artists to promote paint stability is to add more binder to each subsequent layer of applied paint in order to increase adhesion and permit Iexibility within the upper layers. >is method is known as the “fat over lean rule.” Painting inIexible layers upon more Iexible ones can be detrimental, espe-cially as a work expands and contracts in response to changes in relative humidity. In Tanner’s case, cleavage does appear to be exacerbated when his paintings were executed on a Iexible support such as canvas, and the matter is further complicated by the varied Iexibility of materials applied one upon the other. Layering tempera with oil paint is highly problematic; tempera remains more brittle than oil paint.GH Animal glues are extremely responsive to the environment. Tanner’s inclusion of animal glue as a major component in his tempera recipes means that these paint layers will be far more responsive to changes in relative humidity than most of the other materials used in his paintings. Tanner’s use of transpar-ent intermediate layers compounds these issues, as such strata reduce the texture of previous paint layers and thus diminish any mechanical hold to subsequent layers. >ese interlayers are also inherently diVerent in terms of Iexibility, upsetting the overall ability of the work to withstand movement. Tanner’s use of glue interme-diate layers is detrimental, as they exert great tension on lower layers, become very brittle with low humid-ity and, conversely, quite spongy in high humidity. >e zinc white also plays a role in the structural instability of Tanner’s paintings. Recent research has shown that layers of the pigment become quite brittle over time.GJ

It is not surprising, then, that some of Tanner’s

Figure ?,. X-radiograph detail of Henry Ossawa Tanner, Flight into Egypt ca. 6368–::. See plate ?7 for full image.

paintings have been found to be sensitive to the various solvents used in conservation. ScientiFc analysis of sam-ples taken from his paintings revealed the presence of a varnish resin, likely mastic. >e resin was found alone and mixed with oil and within paint and isolating lay-ers. Adding a soft resin to oil paint will make the paint more sensitive to solvents. >e many glazing layers pres-ent in the artist’s late work can be especially vulnerable. Additionally, Tanner’s tempera recipes contain materi-als that always remain soluble in water, alcohols, and hydrocarbons. >ese are the very materials that a con-servator would choose to remove a darkened, degraded varnish layer. >e existence of glue interlayers greatly increases the danger of using even water for a treatment.

Many of the paintings left in Tanner’s studio at the time of his death received a coat of a rather intractable varnish. >is coating has discolored and darkened sig-niFcantly over time, and eVorts to remove it have proven diLcult. >e material was suspected to be an early form of acrylic, but recent analysis has shown that it likely con-tains an oil-modiFed alkyd. >is discovery is unfortunate, as such alkyds are resistant to most of the organic solvents used to clean paintings. Due to the solubility issues in

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Tanner’s work and the intractability of the alkyd layer, the conservator often has to resort to manually removing this coating using a scalpel under a microscope.

>is research project contributes signiFcantly to a greater understanding of this highly creative, yet technically complex artist. Henry Ossawa Tanner experimented with his paint materials, techniques, and modes of application to achieve the unique surfaces and eVects so greatly admired in his pictures, and these methods appear to have evolved over the course of his storied career. Tanner’s use of multiple, heterogeneous, humidity-sensitive, incompatible, and soluble media has created preservation issues, and his paintings should be kept in an environment with stable relative humidity and moderate temperatures. Conservation of Tanner’s works must proceed with great care and a full understanding of their inherent sensitivities. We hope that this initial research sparks interest for fuller investiga-tion into the materials and techniques of this truly original artist—and that new methods to preserve his art will even-tually result

Acknowledgments

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: David Brigham, Anna Marley, and Aella Diamantopoulos

Smithsonian American Art Museum: Elizabeth Broun, Eleanor Harvey, Ann Creager, Martin Kotler, Susan Edwards, Laura Kubick, Helen Ingalls, Hugh Shockey, and Catherine Maynor

Museum Conservation Institute: Robert J. Koestler, Robert J. Speakman, Melvin Wachowiak, and Nicole Little

Washington and Lee University: Erich UVelman, Allison Lemon, and E.SW. Malichosky

Freer Gallery of Art: Paul Jett, Blythe McCarthy, and Janet Douglas

National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC: John K. Delaney, Paola Ricciardi, E. René de la Rie, E. Melanie GiVord, Christopher Maines, Suzanne Quillen Lomax, and Kristin deGhetaldi

Philadelphia Museum of Art: Kathleen A. Foster and Mark Tucker

Others: Joyce Hill Stoner, Mary McGinn, Carolyn Tomkiewicz, Peter Lawrence Fodera, Kenneth Needleman, Mickey Koch, and Sarah Cash

!"#$%6. Dewey F. Mosby and Darrel Sewell, Henry Ossawa Tanner (Phila-

delphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art; New York: Rizzoli, 6336), 6,6.:. Ralph Mayer, !e Artist’s Handbook of Materials and Techniques, 7rd

ed. (New York: Viking Press, 63,A), ::;.7. Lance Mayer and Gay Myers, “Old Master Recipes in the 63:As,

637As, and 639As: Curry, Marsh, Doerner, and Maroger,” Journal of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works 96, no. 6 (Spring :AA:): :6–9:.

9. Henry Ossawa Tanner Papers, Writings and Notes, Box :, Folder :, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

;. Henry Ossawa Tanner Papers, Archives of American Art.8. Hilaire Hiler, !e Painter’s Pocket-Book of Methods and Materials, ?th

ed., ed. Jan Gordon (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 637,), 93–;;.,. V. Vytlacil and R.SD. Turnbull, Egg Tempera Painting, Tempera

Underpainting, Oil Emulsion Painting: A Manual of Technique (New York: Oxford University Press, 637;), 86.

?. Max Doerner, !e Materials of the Artist and !eir Use in Painting, trans. Eugen Neuhaus (New York: Harcourt Brace and Co., 6379), :?.

3. Henry Ossawa Tanner Papers, Archives of American Art.6A. Nicholas Eastaugh, Valentine Walsh, Tracy Chaplin, and Ruth Sid-

dall, Pigment Compendium: Optical Microscopy of Historic Pigments (London: Elsevier, :AA9), 788.

66. Hermann Kühn, Zinc White in Artist’s Pigments: A Handbook of !eir History and Characteristics, vol. 6, ed. Robert L. Feller (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 63?8), 6,7.

6:. Mayer, ::9.67. Marion F. Mecklenburg and Charles S. Tumosa, “>e Chemical

and Mechanical EVects of Pigments on Drying Oils” (unpublished manuscript, Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute, :AA,), 67–69.

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>e exhibition Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit is on view at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts from January :? to April 6;, :A6:; at the Cincinnati Art Museum from May :8 to September 3, :A6:;

and at the Houston Mus.eum of Fine Arts from October 69, :A6: to January 8, :A67.

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