{"id":14620,"date":"2013-04-03T01:01:54","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T01:01:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=14620"},"modified":"2017-03-06T03:21:02","modified_gmt":"2017-03-06T03:21:02","slug":"a-missing-question-mark-the-unknown-henry-ossawa-tanner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=14620","title":{"rendered":"A Missing Question Mark: The Unknown Henry Ossawa Tanner"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Missing Question Mark: The Unknown Henry Ossawa Tanner<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide: a journal of nineteenth-century visual culture<\/a>
\nVolume 8, Issue 2<\/a> (Autumn 2009)<\/p>\n

Will South<\/a><\/strong>, Chief Curator
\nDayton Art Institute<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
\nHenry Ossawa Tanner in 1907<\/small><\/td>\n		\"\"
\nHenry Ossawa Tanner, The Banjo Lesson<\/em>, 1893.
\nOil on canvas, 49″ \u00d7 35\u00bd”. Hampton University Museum.<\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

This article examines Henry Ossawa Tanner’s<\/a> complex sense of his own racial identity. Tanner’s conflict was born of the fact that in his personal adult life he walked a fragile line between his whiteness and his blackness; in France, he systematically worked to remove race from the equation of his life. The author also identifies for the first time the source of his best-known painting, The Banjo Lesson<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Race remains at the heart of Henry Ossawa Tanner studies. Though he would have wished it not to be so, the issue of Tanner\u2019s African American identity defined him in the late nineteenth century and continues to be the criterion by which twenty-first-century audiences appraise his legacy. Tanner struggled and sacrificed to become a recognized and accomplished painter of spiritual narratives, while we would have him also be a reluctant hero\u2014the artist who against all odds overcame social barriers to shine at the Paris Salons<\/a>, see his work purchased by the Mus\u00e9e du Luxembourg<\/a>, and be compared critically with James McNeill Whistler<\/a>. Tanner\u2019s path to artistic success was indeed marked by instances of insult and injustice, and his career ascendancy was a remarkable feat. He lived his life, however, one that was driven by a commitment to the creation of art, in conflict with the hopeful expectations of many of his contemporaries. Tanner\u2019s conflict, one of enormous pain and complexity, was born of the fact that in his personal adult life he walked a fragile line between his whiteness and his blackness; in France, he systematically worked to remove race from the equation of his life.<\/p>\n

In 1914 the poet and art critic Eunice Tietjens<\/a> wrote an article provisionally titled “H. O. Tanner” that she had hoped to publish in the International Studio<\/em>.[1] She sent Tanner a draft of the article along with a letter, which read in part:<\/p>\n

If there is anything in the article that you don\u2019t like or don\u2019t think is true I\u2019m afraid you\u2019ll have to expostulate to the editor, if he accepts it [the article]. The “if” seems large to me tonight, but then I\u2019m tired . . .<\/p>\n

Do write to me what you think of it. Here\u2019s luck to us![2]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tanner, in his rely to that letter, stated that the one problem he had with her article was contained in its last paragraph which reads:<\/p>\n

In his personal life Mr. Tanner has had many things to contend with. Ill-health, poverty and race prejudice, always strong against a negro, have made the way hard for him. But he has come unspoiled alike through these early struggles and through his later successes. Simple and sincere like his canvases he has quietly followed his own instinct for beauty and has already given to the world many unforgettable paintings, while there are yet many years of work before him.[3]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tanner\u2019s objection was to the inference that he is a Negro. In the most comprehensive study done to date on the artist, the 1991 Philadelphia Museum of Art catalogue accompanying the exhibition of the same name, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Dewey Mosby characterizes Tanner\u2019s response to Tietjens\u2019s article as being revelatory of “the complicated nature of Tanner\u2019s own thinking about race.”[4] Tanner\u2019s reply begins:<\/p>\n

May 25\u20141914
\nDear Mrs. Tietjens\u2014<\/p>\n

Your good note & very appreciative article to hand I have read it & except it is more than I deserve, it is exceptionally good. What you say, is what I am trying to do, and in a smaller way am doing it (I hope).<\/p>\n

The only thing I take exception to is the inference in your last paragraph\u2014& while I know it is the dictum in the States, it is not any more true for that reason\u2014<\/p>\n

You say “in his personal life, Mr. T. has had many things to contend with. Ill-health, poverty, and race prejudice, always strong against a negro”\u2014Now am I a Negro? Does not the 3\/4 of English blood in my veins, which when it flowed in “pure” Anglo-Saxon men & which has done in the past<\/span>, effective & distinguished work in the U.S.\u2014does this not count for anything? Does the 1\/4 or 1\/8 of “pure” Negro blood in my veins count for all? I believe it (the Negro blood) counts & counts to my advantage\u2014though it has caused me at times a life of great humiliations & sorrow\u2014unlimited “kicks” & “cuffs” but that it is the source of all my talents (if I have any) I do not believe, any more than I believe it all comes from my English ancestors.<\/p>\n

I suppose according to the distorted way things are seen in the States my curly<\/span> blond curly-headed little boy would be a “negro.”[5]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Tanner\u2019s statement “I believe it (the Negro blood) counts & counts to my advantage” has been interpreted as “clear confirmation of his [Tanner\u2019s] pride in his own roots.”[6] When this letter was cited in the Philadelphia catalogue, however, the transcription contained a significant mistake. Instead of a period\u2014”Now am I a Negro.”\u2014Tanner actually placed a question mark at the end of that sentence: “Now am I a Negro?” This one mark completely changes the meaning of Tanner\u2019s reply. Whereas he did not discount his African American blood, he emphasized that he is more white than black: three-quarters white, perhaps as little as one-eighth “pure” Negro. Furthermore, according to Tanner, neither his whiteness nor his blackness accounted for his talent.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The phrase “Now am I a Negro?” is profound evidence that Tanner understood himself to be, by virtue of genealogy and self-definition and not according to the “distorted way things are seen in the States,” not black. It was, he had come to conclude, a matter open to discussion. Yes, his African American blood counted, but again in his words, did the three-quarters of his English blood “not count for anything?”…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article examines Henry Ossawa Tanner’s complex sense of his own racial identity. Tanner’s conflict was born of the fact that in his personal adult life he walked a fragile line between his whiteness and his blackness; in France, he systematically worked to remove race from the equation of his life. The author also identifies for the first time the source of his best-known painting, “The Banjo Lesson.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,459,125,1196,8,6462,20],"tags":[6716,6709,6717,6708,6707],"class_list":["post-14620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-history","category-identitydevelopment","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-henry-o-tanner","tag-henry-ossawa-tanner","tag-henry-tanner","tag-nineteenth-century-art-worldwide","tag-will-south"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52106,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14620\/revisions\/52106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}