An appreciation of Henry Ossawa Tanner

Editorial Staff Art

September 2009 | Within nine years of moving abroad, Henry Ossawa Tanner, America’s first major African American artist, had become an international success. By 1900 he ranked among the leading American artists in Paris and was widely considered the premier biblical painter of his day. Exhibiting regularly at the Paris Salon, he was attracting even greater critical acclaim than Thomas …

Endnotes: African American schoolgirl embroidery

Editorial Staff

“Amy is a treasure,” Linda Eaton, curator of textiles at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware, said to me referring to Amy Finkel, the Philadelphia needlework dealer, who recently brought a rare Berlin work picture stitched by a black American schoolgirl to her attention. Knowing that Eaton has long felt that Winterthur’s collection does not adequately represent the cultural diversity that …