Preview - Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

PAFA In THE nEWS:
Reviews of Henry Ossawa
Tanner: Modern Spirit
The show describes Tanner as a highly acclaimed,
international modern artist who reinvigorated genre
paintings and religious art through innovative artistic
techniques – loose brushwork, evocative colors and a
distinctive mastery of light.
— America Magazine
Tanner became known for unsentimental biblical subjects,
such as lazarus, imagined in terms of diffused, moody
light, stylized color, dense paint and an emphasis on
human emotions.
— Wall Street Journal
Through his ‘narrative suggestion,’ Tanner presents the
total experience of faith – from agonizing doubt to joyous
acceptance – independently of time and space. It is this
transcendence and human touch that truly make Tanner
the ‘Modern Spirit.’
— Bigthink.com
A full appreciation of his paintings will require the
viewer to rethink modernism, moving beyond its typical
avant-garde emphasis on non-figuration.
— Courier Post
Stunning career retrospective exhibition.
— The Philadelphia Tribune
A historically gripping exhibition.
— New York Times
This rewarding, insightful exhibition serves to broaden
and deepen respect for Tanner, an iconic figure in
American art history.
— Antiques and The Arts Weekly
Tanner paintings humanize the holy – With its exhibition
Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit, the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts offers Philadelphians a
splendid chance to consider what this remarkable African
American painter achieved.
— The Philadelphia Inquirer
Tanner deserves to be ranked with other great African-
American cultural figures of the 20th century who
excelled in artistic fields that had been dominated by
Europeans or white Americans. Henry Ossawa Tanner:
Modern Spirit is a magnificent retrospective.
— California Literary Review
PAFA’s exhibition, which places a major retrospective
of Tanner back in the school where he studied from
1879 to 1885, showcases Tanner’s modernism, from the
humble Mary visited by an abstract beam of light to a
shadowy Salome, cloaked in Tanner’s trademark
nocturnal blues.
— Metro
There is only one reason to see this current exhibition
at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts: because
Henry O. Tanner (1859-1937) was an excellent American
artist, and we haven’t had enough opportunity to savor
his work.
— Broadstreetreview.com
With a sense of otherworldly light and atmosphere that
typifies Art nouveau at the turn of the century, it’s a
remarkable work that typifies Tanner’s style, which, by the
1920s, was cause for even the most conservative critics to
acclaim him as one of the leading painters of the era.
— Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
It has taken a few decades and several important
American exhibitions to get Henry Ossawa Tanner, an
African-American painter who spent most of his career in
France, back on the map in the united States, but Henry
Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit should finally give him the
broader recognition he deserves.
-ARTnews
When you think of African American trailblazers in the
art world, there are the Jacob lawrences, Jean Michel-
Basquiats and Romare Beardons, ones who spring to mind
immediately. yet, there was one man who inspired these
aforementioned gentlemen as well as a generation of
many renowned artists, his name, Henry Ossawa Tanner.
-Ebony
Photo: Denise guerin Images
Record Visitor Turnout for
Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit
Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit, a major exhibition of artwork by African American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner,
opened in January with record attendance, drawing some of the largest crowds in recent exhibition history. The exhibition
also brought diverse audiences to the museum, generating appeal across racial, ethnic, and generational lines.
“Visitors continued to attend in large numbers and many were returning a second time. Tanner’s compelling story
and rich body of work resonate with Philadelphia and beyond,” remarks Harry Philbrick, Edna S. Tuttleman Director
of the Museum.
Showcasing Tanner’s paintings, photographs, sculptures, watercolors, and drawings, Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern
Spirit was organized by PAFA, where the artist studied from 1879 to 1885, and will tour to the Cincinnati Art Museum and
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
The exhibition contained over 100 works, including 12 paintings that had never been shown in a Tanner retrospective. It
included Tanner’s famed Resurrection of Lazarus, from the collection of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, a career-making canvas
that earned Tanner his first international praise when it was exhibited in 1897 and which had never crossed
the Atlantic. <
Opening Reception for the Tanner exhibition on January 27.
Tanner Scholar’s Day
March 6, 2012
By Anna O. Marley, Curator of Historical American Art
On a day when the galleries of Henry Ossawa Tanner:
Modern Spirit were closed to the public, a group of approximately
40 professors, curators, conservators, and advanced
graduate students from local, national and international
institutions came together to discuss Tanner’s artwork and
legacy in the physical presence of the art itself. This day
made possible in depth discussions of Tanner’s painting
practice in a way that is not possible in a classroom or regular
symposium session, when scholars and students look
at digital images rather than the works themselves. One
of the most exciting elements of the day was being able to
offer 13 competitive graduate student scholarships so that
the next generation of historians of American art could see
Tanner’s oeuvre first hand, as well as meet and network
with both their peers and established scholars. Particularly
engaging discussions centered on Tanner’s technique and
the problem of how to define “modern” art in relation to
the artist’s body of work.
graduate student and PAFA intern Jeff Richmond-Moll writes, “It was exciting and rewarding to sit in PAFA’s galleries, in
front of Tanner’s paintings, and surrounded by the scholars whose insightful projects on the artist and his era have been
so instrumental in my own studies. learning about Brian Baade and Amber kerr-Allison’s conservation research on Tanner
in front of the artist’s own pictures brought the works to life. It bridged the gap I often invent between an artist’s technical
process and their creative intentions.”
Participating graduate students (see accompanying image) included: la Tanya Autry (university of Delaware), lacey
Baradel (university of Pennsylvania), layla Bermeo (Harvard university), Emilie Boone (northwestern university), Emily
Burns (Washington university in St. louis), Erin Corrales-Diaz (unC Chapel Hill), nika Elder (Princeton university), laura
Hartman (Winterthur/university of Delaware), James Peck (university of Oklahoma), Jeff Richmond-Moll (PAFA), Hélène
Valance (université Paris Diderot), Tashima Thomas (Rutgers university), and Amy Torbert (university of Delaware). The
invited discussion leaders were conservators, Amber kerr-Alison (Smithsonian American Art Museum) and Brian Baade
(university of Delaware), and Professors Renee Ater (university of Maryland) and Camara Holloway
(university of Delaware). <
Photo: Barbara katus
PREVIEW // SPRIng/SuMMER 2012 // SEE FOR YOURSELF