In Front | The Artist Who Traveled to the Promised Land

Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting The Two Disciples at the Tomb received an award at a Chicago art competition in 1906. That painting can now be seen at the Chicago Art Institute, but there was a time when it seemed Tanner’s work would be largely forgotten. 

He was born to a formerly enslaved woman in 1859. Sarah Tanner had escaped to the North with the help of the Underground Railroad. Henry went on to become the only African-American studying at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. In 1891 he moved to Paris to continue his painting career. It was during this time that he turned to biblical subjects in his painting.

While in Paris, his painting Resurrection of Lazarus earned an award at the prestigious Paris Salon. The French government purchased it as a museum piece.

Tanner took his work with biblical subjects so seriously that he traveled several times to the Middle East. In all, he spent around 6 months around Jerusalem. Upon returning from his travels, Tanner produced Nicodemus Visiting Jesus, which won the Lippincott Prize. He went on to produce a wide variety of biblical paintings.

Tanner died in 1937 in Paris, after a successful career. He received numerous honors including being knighted by the French Legion of Honor and being received as the first African-American member of the National Academy of Design (New York City).

Though his reputation diminished after his death, it has undergone a renaissance after the Smithsonian exhibited his work in 1969, the first major exhibit of Tanner’s in the United States. Now some consider Tanner the greatest African-American painter of all time.