Tanner

Henry O. Tanner - The Banjo Lesson

All the words in bold have magnetic word strips in the packet.  As the word is mentioned the word strip goes up on the board.  Mix the words up as you go, after read the questions and let the child pick the correct word strip off the board.

Tanner was born in 1859 in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania.  Was given the middle name for Osawatomie, the Kansas town where his Dad led his first slave revolt.  His Dad was a highly respected Methodist Bishop of the African Methodist Church.  His Mom, Sarah, was born a slave. One of 11 children.  Her mother sent her and her brothers and sisters to the North during the middle of the night so that they could be free, never to see them again. The children were divided among various families once they got there.  Sarah became well educated. In 1857, she met Benjamin Tanner.  They were married the next year. The next year after that, Henry was born.

In 1866, when Tanner was seven years old he moved to Philadelphia. His home became a center of intelligence and learning for black Philadelphia.  His father preached a gospel of daily devotions and social activism.

When he was 12 years old he was in Fairmont Park on an outing with his Dad. He saw an artist painting a big tree on a hill and watched for quite a while and decided he could do that!  The very next day he started painting with an old house painters brush and the cardboard from the back of an old geography book.

His earliest paintings were of landscapes, seascapes, and animals at the Philadelphia Zoo.  (Show paintings)

When he was 21 years old he entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  He was very good. Some students were so jealous by Tanner's work that they were mean to him.  Once they tied Tanner to his canvas while they were painting outside and left him in the street.  Tanner left the academy when he was 22.  He spent the next seven years trying to become a successful painter, but failed. In 1888, he moved to Atlanta and opened a photography studio.  When the studio failed, family friends helped him get a job as an Art Teacher at Clark University.  He later headed the art department.  Tanner was known as a superb teacher, but he wanted to paint.  He sold most of his old paintings for $300.00 each.

Tanner felt he was treated unfairly in America, so he jumped aboard a steamboat and headed to Europe in 1891.  He stopped in Paris, France and stayed until his death.  He was 31 years old.  He studied at the Academy Julian.  He became very successful, well known, and loved.  He was one of the first African American Artists to live in Paris. He found no prejudice in Paris, do you know what this means?

In 1893, just two years later since moving to Paris, Tanner painted The Banjo Lesson. This was one of the best work's from this period of time.  Tanner shows sympathetic treatment of life amoung the Southern balcks during the late 1800s.

Some of the other first successful paintings Tanner had were the Young Sabot Maker, and Daniel in the Lion's Den (show paintings)

In 1897, a wealthy Philadelphia man financed the first of Tanner's trips to the Holy Land (Egypt and Palestine), this is where Tanner felt his calling was. He painted many

Tanner was a perfectionist and he finished only 3-4 paintings a year, working slowly and carefully.  By the time he died in 1937 at the age of seventy-seven, he'd been made Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and his paintings were hung in major French and American museums.

Henry Ossawa Tanner was the first successful religious painter in America. He was also one of the most important Black American Artists that ever lived. 

Look at Painting:

What time of day do you think it was?

Where is the light coming from?

Do you think the subjects are related?

religious subjects.  (Show The Resurrection of Lazarus and The Holy Family).  The same year Tanner met Jessie Olssen, a white Opera singer.  In 1899 they married. He was 40 years old. The year before they married, Jessie posed as Mary in Tanner's painting the Annunciation. They had one son, Jesse.