Henry Ossawa TannerLa résurrection de Lazare© RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) , a pioneering African-American artist raised in Philadelphia in the years after the Civil War, went on to become an American expatriate artist at the highest levels of the international art world at the turn of the twentieth century. He devoted 46 years of his life and career to France. Three religious paintings −a genre in which Henry O. Tanner gained his fame − were acquired by the French state during the artist's life, and now form a part of the Musée d'Orsay's collection. They will be on display at the Musée d'Orsay during the symposium, and shortly thereafter, travel to the United States - one of them − The Resurrection of Lazarus
− for the first time.
Using the career of Henry O. Tanner as a starting point, this study day will explore the century-long history of African American art and France, asking how racial and cultural identities interplayed with transatlantic exchanges from fin-de-siècle cosmopolitanism into the post-colonial age. International speakers will discuss the work of artists traveling to Paris specifically and France more generally. At first attracted by a rich artistic and intellectual scene and the possibility of artistic recognition that was not always to be found in their home country, these artists were later motivated by the vibrant and creative "années folles" to be found in jazz age Paris.
Under the supervision of Anna Marley
, curator, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia
In partnership with the PAFA, the Terra Foundation for American Art and the INHA