Henry Ossawa Tanner 1859 - 1937

Ms. Nellie Miller, by 1970
Ms. Nadine Easter, Santa Monica, California (her niece)
By descent in the family to the present owner

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Born two years before the Civil War, Henry Ossawa Tanner grew up in Philadelphia determined from a young age to become an artist. His father, Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, at first resisted his son's urges, but a combination of obvious talent and a constitution ill-suited to long hours eventually led to his family's support for Henry's desire to paint. Tanner became perhaps the first African-American student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he was instructed and mentored by Thomas Eakins and the genre painter Thomas Hovenden among others. Later, Tanner would sit for an evocative portrait by Eakins (1900, Hyde Collection, Glens Falls, New York).

Tanner, whose middle name is derived from abolitionist hero John Brown's nickname, always expressed some ambivalence about the mixture of opportunity and prejudice in America, and after a trip to Europe in 1891, financed through purchases of his work by Cincinnati patrons Bishop and Mrs. Joseph Hartzell, the artist eventually settled in Paris.  Later, Tanner said, "Negro blood counts and counts to my advantage - though it has caused me at times a life of great humiliation and sorrow. . . . this condition has driven me out of the country... still deep down in my heart I love it and am sometimes sad that I cannot live where my heart is."  

Tanner was always deeply inspired by religious themes, and their depiction came to dominate his artistic life as well. His Ressurection of Lazarus (1896) was widely acclaimed at the Paris Salon of 1897 and purchased by the French Government for the Musee du Luxembourg, cementing his reputation in Europe and the United States. Tanner's patron Rodman Wannamaker financed the artist's first trip to the Holy Land to encourage this passion, a voyage Tanner would repeat several times in his life.

Shepherd and Flock is one of a series of interpretations of The Parable of the Good Shepherd (John 10:1-18) which Tanner first explored in his 1922 painting The Good Shepherd (Hampton University Museum), and returned to later in his career. In this canvas, the nocturnal palette, ethereal lunar penumbra, and extremely sophisticated spatial rendering bring a tranquil, heavenly aspect to the vast landscape. The shepherd tenderly cradles a tiny lamb, his flock gathered close to him under the night sky. Tanner had experimented extensively in binding oil and tempera, achieving the thick, almost sculptural layering of paint that adds dimension to the surface. Tanner's theological influences together with his classical training made him a respected and recognized artist during his life, and his shepherd oils are in the permanent collections of the National Gallery and the de Menil in Houston among others.