The first African American artist to gain international acclaim, Henry Ossawa Tanner spent most of his career as an expatriate in France, feeling he couldn't reach his full potential as an artist in a United States ridden with Jim Crow laws. Over the next couple of months, the Baltimore Museum of Art is presenting a special exhibit of a modest collection of his work, Henry Ossawa Tanner and the Lure of Paris. Though interesting overall, this exhibition includes only six of Tanner's painting and a couple of his etchings.
The majority of the display consists of many etchings by 19th century French artists and even a couple of paintings by artists like Corot and Delacroix from the BMA's collection. These other works can be compared and contrasted with Tanner's pieces and are a worthwhile view on their own. However, the Tanner works, though fewer in number, provide the main appeal of the exhibit.
In these pieces, his work employs an interesting combination of themes of the past with a more modern impressionist style. Using limited palettes, often of blues and greens, and simple shapes like those of Gauguin, his paintings achieve a unique look. While his technique is varied, all of his nighttime pieces have a somber quality and his use of figures is generalized, giving them a ghostly quality.
A beautiful example of this is his painting The Disciples See Christ Walking on the Water. Because Tanner was the son of a bishop, much of his work focused on religious themes, interesting in a time when such motifs were finally losing popularity. This particular example has a breathtakingly luminous, serene quality, the moon reflected in the water and the glowing column representing Jesus as the only sources of light.
Despite its few highlights, the exhibit was fairly unexciting, tucked away in a small gallery and comprised mostly of etchings that are usually hiding in storerooms for good reason. This exhibit reminded me, in terms of quality, of the recent special exhibit on Picasso's later work which seemed exciting on paper but was comprised of only one room with a couple of paintings and a bunch of fairly lackluster sketches.
Perhaps a true art historian could appreciate these exhibits. But as the general public goes, when I was in the exhibit there wasn't a single person other than myself who was there for more than two minutes. Things could be taken up a notch.
All in all I wouldn't recommend going to the BMA just to see this showing of Tanner, although that should be pretty clear by now. However, if you're in the museum already, it's definitely worth stopping in for a couple of minutes.
Henry Ossawa Tanner and the Lure of Paris runs until May 28. The second installment of the BMA's series on Tanner, Henry Ossawa Tanner and His Influence in America, will be opening on June 7.
