A turn-of-the-19th-century African-American painter, gained international respect by bringing a new spirit to modern art.
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937) was born in Pittsburgh, Pa., the son of Benjamin Tucker Tanner, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and Sarah Miller Tanner, a former enslaved woman. In 1860, the Tanners traveled east, with Benjamin serving as a pastor in Washington and Maryland before moving to Philadelphia in 1868. The move was consequential; Henry was inspired to take up art when he saw a man painting in Fairmount Park. In 1879 he enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy, becoming the school’s first full-time African-American student. It was a dubious distinction. One night, fellow students tied Tanner to an easel and abandoned him in the middle of Broad Street. Tanner found a more racially hospitable environment in Paris and made it his home.
Tanner studied at the Académie Julian and began exhibiting at the Paris Salon in the 1890s. His first great paintings were of Black subjects, undertaken because he felt previous treatments were comical and condescending. From the mid-1890s his interest shifted to religious themes, and by the turn of the century, his interpretations of biblical scenes were well known on both sides of the Atlantic. See, for example, The Disciples See Christ Walking on the Water, below. Writing from Paris, critic Vance Thompson assessed, “Mr. Tanner is not only a biblical painter, but he has brought to modern art a new spirit.”
“Mr. Tanner is not only a biblical painter, but he has brought to modern art a new spirit.”
—Vance Thompson
In 1897, now internationally famous, Tanner returned to the United States and visited his parents at their home in Kansas. He painted portraits of his mother and father, and at least two watercolors. With the painting Kansas City, Kansas, a new theme entered Tanner’s lexicon: the landscape at night. Nocturnes, serene and evocative, feature prominently in his subsequent oils. In this piece, without overt religious meaning, the painting evokes the spiritual atmosphere that pervades all of Tanner’s work.
A Closer Look: Kansas City, Kansas
The composition is built upon the horizontal line of the ground plane, broken by the vertical form of a slender tree at right and a diagonal path at left. A mother and two children can be discerned in the darkness, walking toward the left corner. Above and behind them hangs a crescent moon in the night sky. The palette relies heavily on blue, and the effect is solemn.
Kansas City, Kansas presages the many nocturnes Tanner painted in oils—landscapes steeped in dark blue, green and violet. This watercolor seems to foretell the mystical nature of his later work, which often features scenes from the Bible swathed in darkness, illuminated only by the moon.
In this boldly executed watercolor, Tanner layered washes of transparent pigment to attain the effect of night. Much of Kansas City, Kansas, was painted wet-into-wet, creating broad, fluid passages, blotted edges and indistinct forms. Tanner brought out subtle details in the thin tree on the right, where he added lines in pencil and with a fine brush.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum possesses two watercolors by Tanner titled Kansas City, Kansas. The other painting (not shown) features a similar composition in waning daylight, the trees and houses visible in the pre-evening hour, lights glowing from the windows of homes. The region was significant to Tanner, whose middle name is a derivation of Osawatomie, a suburb of Kansas City, where John Brown had begun his anti-slavery crusade.
About the Author
Jerry N. Weiss is a contributing writer for fine art magazines. He teaches at the Art Students League of New York.
