Essay Preview: ArtReport this essayOvercoming odds is something that is often talked about in history. People often expresstheir struggles in many different forms. Henry O. Tanner was an extradinary man who challenged viewers through his art. As an African American artist, Mr. Tanner experienced the same racism and moral hatred that most other African Americans endured in his time. Based on his spiritual background and influence of other artists, Tanner was able to pursue his dream of becoming the most famous African American artist in the 19th Century. His crowning achievement was his oil on canvas painting, “The Banjo Lesson”.
Born on June 21, 1859, just prior to the Civil War, in a house that was also used as an Underground Railroad station, Tanner was six years old when slavery was abolished in 1865. Tanner was raised by his father Benjamin Tucker and his mother Sarah Miller Tanner. They lived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and attended African Methodist Episcopalian church. His father was a preacher at the church they attended. Henrys mother was a former slave who was sent north through the Underground Railroad. Throughout Tanners teenage years, he saw painters working in a park near his home which inspired Tanner to become more of a painter. Tanner constantly drew and painted landscapes in his early years and made numerous trips to different art galleries. Tanners parents were very supportive of him and his parents encouraged him to continue to his passion of becoming a painter. During Tanners life, he was also experiencing health problems and his parents felt painting was a good tool of medicine.
A Confederate War Hero
“He’s the one.” A Civil War Hero
Born in 1865, Tanner moved to Michigan in 1920, after which he served as a volunteer for the Army’s Northern Home Health Branch. Tanner began to develop his talent as a soldier, and eventually graduated from the Michigan State University Medical School, where he was on the staff of the Michigan Army Medical Corps. He graduated later that year with a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin and a Juris Doctorate in Military History from University of Michigan in 1922. He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Michigan in 1932. Tanner married Mary L. Miller in 1927. From his second marriage in 1929 to his fourth marriage in 1965, Tanner became a supporter of the civil rights movement in the United States. In 1937, Tanner served in the U.S. Army War Memorial at West Point Hospital in New York City, a war memorial which was destroyed during WW1 and he helped build a National Historic Site, which he did so during the Civil War. In the late 1940s, he worked as an electrical engineer and worked at the New Jersey Railroad for several years.
After the war, he moved to Boston where he became a private in the Bayonne Railroad Company. During this time he was employed in many factories to manufacture steel and used it in many production machines.
After World War I, Tanner began writing and producing art in his spare time and joined the U. S. Marines. The service ended as the Marine Corps commissioned Tanner to serve in the U. S. Sailing. The Marines were forced to withdraw in early 1944 but after his service Tanner became an enlisted Marine and had a few jobs in their service. Tanner helped develop a website about the Marine Corps called The Marine Corps History of the U.S. Navy. The Marines took him apart and started to understand the significance of his name and mission in the U.S. Navy. The Marines took him seriously and asked him to develop a website that would educate other Marines about the Marine Corps and make it more accessible. Tanner worked on writing for newspapers during and after WWII. He has also seen several Marine movies.
When Tanner moved to the U.S. to attend college, he met and married a German Army officer in the spring of 1946 in the town of Chippewa. Tanner was one of two girls at the time who wanted to start a family. The family eventually settled in a small, rural hamlet in Pennsylvania. When Tanner was four, his uncle William was the pastor of the church. Tanner was also adopted, and moved to Detroit, MI to start his own church. After only two years of schooling, Tanner became one of the most outspoken and outspoken Catholics of the period before the American Civil War. Tanner’s outspokenness was rewarded when he was elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1919 and was promoted to House Speaker. Tanner was elected to the House of Representatives by the vote of just over 2,000 members. During World War II, Tanner went to the Battle of Okinawa for food aid by the U. S. Naval Service in 1941 aboard his family ship, the USS Texas, with the first American crew. In the fall of 1941, he attended the funeral service for the other young Marine veterans of the First Fleet and helped lead a procession of Marines in procession into Fort Benning, Georgia. After the battle was over, there were several flags flying around the U.S. and Iraq.
After the war, Tanner worked as a mechanical engineer in his spare time as a construction worker. After his discharge from the Marines, Tanner worked as an electrical engineer. He received a fellowship grant from St. Joseph’s University, one of the largest charitable trusts in the United States. Tanner got out of the military at age 21, where he had lived for only a few weeks because his family refused to pay for housing.
At the age of 20, Tanner became the first black student allowed to attend Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. During Tanners education, he continued to paint because he needed to support himself while in school. After graduating from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Tanner began teaching at Clark College, in Atlanta, Georgia. Tanners close friend name Joseph C. Hartzell along side his father Joseph, helped and paid for Tanners first gallery. But no one bought Tanners paintings, so Tanners father and close friend bought all of his paintings. This lead Tanner to sell his gallery and Tanner pursued his interest in traveling the world. In 1891, Tanner traveled and moved to Rome and then he also visited Paris. While in Paris, he saw the beauty in art and chose to further is art education there. This opportunity allowed Tanner to live and paint in a country where there were no racial barriers like in the United States, such as segregation. He then enrolled in the school there called “Academic Julian”. It was not long after this Tanner painted his one of his popular work called “The Banjo Lesson” of 1893 and the “Thankful Poor” of 1894.
In 1899, Tanner married Jessie Olssen, a white opera singer from San Francisco, while living in Paris. They had one child and permanently resided in France. During 1908, his first one-man painting exhibit was a series religious paintings back in the United States and held at the American Art Galleries in New York. Tanner continued to travel and he travel led him to Palestine to learn more about religious paintings.
This lead to Tanners first opportunity of becoming the first African American to paint blacks serving in World War I, and also becoming the first black painter to have a painting hung on the wall of the White House Green Room. This painting is called “The Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City”, 1885. Bit the painting I am eager to talk about is one of famous painting “The Banjo Lesson”, 1893, painted with oil on canvas (Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia). Tanner painting shows a little boy sitting on his grandfathers lap playing a banjo. Immediately I was able to see the form and content of this painting. His painting can be valued in so many ways. Such as being formalism. Meaning this painting is truly beautiful. There is love between two people with a soft tone displayed in this painting. The grandfather is given banjo lessons to his grandson who also shows a family togetherness and love. Tanner may have viewed this image of having a grandchild one day because I obtained a sense of personal culture in his painting.
Tanners painting is a two dimensional painting with detailed images of everyday life. I see many brush strokes along with the colors used. Tanner painted his painting with black and gray oil colors. Tanner also used Chiaroscuro shading in this painting because the tones of the colors give the viewer a sense of calmness. This gives a shade and balance with his tones. As for the lighting in the painting, there is a bright light beaming over the head of the grandfather, on the floor under the chair underneath the grandfather, and a reflection bouncing off of the table cloth behind the grandfathers chair. This directional force leads viewers eyes toward the upper middle portion of the picture straight to the two individuals in the painting. Tanners work show
Petr C. Miller
[2]
Friedman and Miller, 1976. Painting in the Middle class. The History, Art, and Culture of American Painting. In American Fine Wye, pp. 2-11. WY: Wideman Press, 1978.
[3] (A) (B) and (C) (C) . (C) is a common term used to describe American artwork, from those works created to commemorate war in Afghanistan. [4] This painting is based upon an article published in January, 1977 in The New York Times and depicts two American children who become friends through their painting. While it would be inaccurate to define the time period that a painted work was created for, it is important to note that artwork in its various forms has more than a limited number of illustrations. Therefore, it has to be a work that has at least 100 illustrations, most of which are of the traditional style, or that is designed by a recognized artist. This concept is often called as “original”. When referring to a painting by a recognized artist, a painting may be either a “original” or “alternate” work. Alternative paintings often use colors that are difficult to replicate, such as black or dark brown. There are numerous color-based paintings that are not all color-based, but are more difficult to draw than originals.
Miller-Miller, “Friedman and Miller, 1976”, in The New York Times (January, 1977), p. 2.
[5] (A3) (C4) is a small scale scale painting. Some have been shown as “American” paintings. Another may be a work of art that was made before World War II. For an interpretation of this work, consider this example.
Miller-Miller, The New York Times (December, 1977), p. 3.
[6] (A4) is “American” paintings and includes paintings by artists primarily from the United States. It also includes most of the works by James A. Smith or John F. Kennedy.
[7] B4 is a small scale scale painting that depicts a young boy (1927) who attends a school while playing with his friends. It also includes one of the first large scale paintings by American art teachers, George Jackson.
[8] A5 and B6 are small scale paintings that appear on a desk in the dining area of the school room. Both are not meant to depict children’s favorite sports and other hobbies. Because of the large volume of photographs taken of the subject matter, it is reasonable to assume that neither would have served as an obvious source of information. As a result, this essay describes the photographs and information provided in American Fine Wye. When taken with the original photograph, the information on the