List of paintings by Henry Ossawa Tanner



This is a list of works by painter Henry Ossawa Tanner.

He used a variety of techniques and his works included paintings with elements of genre, American realist, French academic, oriental, impressionist and symbolist styles. See Tanner's symbolist elements

His teachers included Thomas Eakins (American realism, photography), Thomas Hovenden (American realism), Benjamin Constant (orientalist paintings and portraits, French academic) and Jean-Paul Laurens (history painting, French academic).

His friends and colleagues included Hermon MacNeil (sculptor), Hermann Dudley Murphy (landscapes), Paul Gauguin (synthetism), Myron G. Barlow (genre painting), Charles Hovey Pepper (Japanese style woodblocks). Charles Filiger (symbolist), Armand Séguin (post-impressionism), Jan Verkade (post-impressionism, Christian symbolist), Paul Sérusier (abstract art), and Gustave Loiseau (post-impressionism).

He was inspirational to young artists studying in France, including Hale Woodruff and Romare Bearden.

Paris, 1891-1896
Tanner set out for Rome by way of Liverpool and Paris on the ship City of Chester on 4 January 1891. He found Paris to his liking and discovered the Académie Julian, where he began his studies in France. After two years in France, he discovered the existence of the Paris Salon and set a goal to get his artwork accepted. It may have been the summer after he came to France and not two years; he tried to enter a painting in the 1893 Salon.

Years 1913-1918, World War I
1914 was the year that Tanner returned to the Paris Salon after "several years of absence," bringing his 1912 painting Christ in the House of Lazarus and Mary. He had remarked in 1910 "that he would not exhibit in the salon again as they had stuck his picture into a corner which everyone knows is almost an insult." French artists were upset over a U.S. tariff on their paintings, and said to be taking revenge in the Salon.

He did not exhibit at the Salon in 1907, due to eye strain, but in 1908 entered The Wise and Foolish Virgins which he worked on in 1906, 1907 and finished in 1908. Newspapers don't record a Salon entry for 1909; but he focused his 1908 energy on a one-man exhibition of his artwork in New York, and the 1909 papers continued to talk about that event. Tanner may have avoided displaying at the Salon 1910, 1911, 1912, and 1913.

He began to display there again in 1914; however, that year marked the beginning of World War I, which further disrupted both his painting and his display at the Salon. Also in 1914, his mother died.