Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit

FAIN: GI-50290-11

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Philadelphia, PA 19102-1424)
Anna O. Marley (Project Director: August 2010 to June 2013)

Planning for a traveling exhibition, a catalog, a children's book, and public programs on African American painter Henry Ossawa Tanner.

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) requests a $300,000 NEH AHCO grant supporting implementation of the exhibition and accompanying publication for "Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit," exploring the personal journey of Tanner (an alumnus of PAFA's School) toward artistic identity and the historical milieu that made his internationally lauded career possible. The exhibition's 114 objects will be displayed in PAFA's 7,000-square-foot exhibition space, organized not chronologically, but geographically -- around the places that were central to Tanner’s development and artistic output: I. Tanner in America, II. Tanner and Modern Painting in Paris: The Academy and the Salon, III. Tanner in the French Countryside, and IV. Tanner in North Africa and the Holy Land. The exhibition and catalog will dramatically advance scholarly understanding of Tanner’s distinguished career. PAFA's exhibition will run January - April 2012, and then tour to museums in Atlanta and Houston.

Associated Products

Henry Ossawa Tanner: His Boyhood Dreams Come True (Book)
Title: Henry Ossawa Tanner: His Boyhood Dreams Come True
Author: Faith Ringgold
Abstract: Henry Ossawa Tanner: His Boyhood Dreams Come True, nker Hill Publishing, Piermont, New Hampshire. 2011.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/Currently-On-View/Henry-Ossawa-Tanner-Modern-Spirit/Henry-Ossawa-Tanner-Modern-Spirit/1147/
Publisher: Bunker Hill Publishing, Piermont, New Hampshire
ISBN: 978159730925

Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit (Catalog)
Title: Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit
Author: Anna O. Marley
Abstract: Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit, University of California Press, 2011.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.pafa.org/Shop/Portfolio-Online/Products/Product-Detail/404/categoryid--21/productid--285/
Catalog Type: Exhibition Catalog
Publisher: University of California Press, Berkeley

Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit (Exhibition)
Title: Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit
Curator: Anna O. Marley, PhD.
Abstract: Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) grew up in Philadelphia, and decided to become an artist after observing a painter in Fairmount Park, eventually studying from 1879 to 1885 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the presenter of this exhibition. His life’s artistic journey took him to the southern U.S., Paris, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Tangiers. Tanner went on to become a critically acclaimed and prize-winning artist in the United States and France for what contemporary critics called his “modern” and “personal” religious painting. The exhibition and accompanying catalog situate Tanner as an American artist of international stature who reframed genre scenes of African-American life, Orientalist painting, and religious painting, through his own innovative modern painting practices and techniques. The exhibition, at PAFA from January 27 – April 15, 2012, presented more than 100 objects in PAFA’s 7,000-square-foot exhibition space, and then toured to Cincinnati and Houston.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.pafa.org/Museum/Exhibitions/Past-Exhibitions/Henry-Ossawa-Tanner-Modern-Spirit/879/
Primary URL Description: Webpages for PAFA's exhibition, Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit

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