Henry Ossawa Tanner

Henry Ossawa Tanner was an African American painter at the turn of the 20th century, and the first black student at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His work was extremely well received, yet the racism of American society drove Tanner to relocate to Paris in 1891, where he remained until his death in 1937. Light in Tanner’s paintings functions as a major compositional and symbolic tool in depicting religious subject matter. Some critics speculate that his characteristic positioning of figures between two opposing light sources was a metaphor for his position of being caught between American and French society. Tanner’s impressive legacy includes being the first African American artist to be gain international acclaim, as well as the first to have a work purchased for the White House collection.