HENRY OSSAWA TANNER

Tanner (1859-1937) was born in Pittsburgh, PA, of African, English, and Native American heritage. He was the son of a prominent African American clergyman. Tanner trained for two years at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with Thomas Eakins, but his subsequent attempts to support himself as an artist in Philadelphia and Atlanta failed. With financing from a Methodist bishop and his wife, Tanner set off for Rome in 1891 but got no farther than Paris. There he remained for the rest of his life, heartened by its receptive social and artistic climate. In the 1890s he studied at the Académie Julian and soon was exhibiting at the Paris salons and in major exhibitions in America. He remained detached from the contemporary art movements, and his paintings of religious subjects express his passion, especially strengthened by several trips to the Holy Land, for the elusive and mystical aspects of life.

ALMA THOMAS

Thomas (1891-1978) was born in Columbus, Georgia, the eldest of four daughters. When she was fifteen, her family moved to Washington, D.C. In 1924 she became the first graduate of the art department of Howard University, and ten years later received an M.A. from Columbia University. In 1925 she began a 35-year career teaching art at Shaw Junior High in Washington. In 1938 she established the first art gallery in the D.C. public schools. Her duties effectively put her painting career on hold until her retirement in 1960. Thomas’ paintings drew upon all her sensory, childhood memories of rich vegetation, her own garden, the formal plantings of the capital city, and the musical sounds of nature to develop a painting style that gained her mainstream attention.

CHARLES WHITE

White (1918-1979) was a graphic artist, painter, and instructor. He studied at the Chicago Art Institute and the Art Students League, and later taught at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1965 until his death in 1979. In his drawings, lithographs, and paintings he depicted the strength and dignity of black Americans.