Afro American Artists and France: In Henry Ossawa Tanner's Footsteps

Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937) , a pioneering African-American artist raised in Philadelphia in the years after the Civil War, went on to become an American expatriate artist at the highest levels of the international art world at the turn of the twentieth century. He devoted 46 years of his life and career to France. Three religious paintings −a genre in which Henry O. Tanner gained his fame − were acquired by the French state during the artist's life, and now form a part of the Musée d'Orsay's collection. They will be on display at the Musée d'Orsay during the symposium, and shortly thereafter, travel to the United States - one of them − The Resurrection of Lazarus − for the first time.
Using the career of Henry O. Tanner as a starting point, this study day will explore the century-long history of African American art and France, asking how racial and cultural identities interplayed with transatlantic exchanges from fin-de-siècle cosmopolitanism into the post-colonial age. International speakers will discuss the work of artists traveling to Paris specifically and France more generally. At first attracted by a rich artistic and intellectual scene and the possibility of artistic recognition that was not always to be found in their home country, these artists were later motivated by the vibrant and creative "années folles" to be found in jazz age Paris.

Under the supervision of Anna Marley, curator, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia

Richard Powell, Professor, Duke University, >North Carolina  

Sodi Braide, piano
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
Extracts from 24 Negro Melodies, op. 59
The Angels Changed My Name
Going Up
Deep River
Charles Ives
The Anti-Abolitionist Riots in the 1830's and 1840's
Three-page sonata
Claude Debussy
Extracts from Preludes
Des pas sur la neige
Voiles
Minstrels
Canope
General Lavine : eccentric
Feux d'artifice
George Gershwin
Three preludes
Rhapsody in Blue (transcription for piano solo by Gershwin)

 

• 10.30-11am Henry Ossawa Tanner's Raising of Lazarus from Le Quartier Latin to the Luxembourg
  by Marc Simpson, Williams College, Massachussetts
• 11-11.30am Foremost Sculptor of the Negro Race: Meta Warrick Fuller and Paris
  by Renee Ater, University of Maryland

11.30am-12pm The Concept of the Color Line and France: Jefferson, DuBois and Tanner
by Anna Lafont, INHA (Paris)

12h-12h30 Talk

 

• 3-3.30pm Colonialism : From the Indélicats to Ousmane Sow
  by Sarah Wilson, Courtauld Institute, London
• 3.30-4pm History of Contemporary African American Art, new challenges for French research and critical reception
  by Elvan Zabunyan, Université Rennes 2
• 4-4.30pm Permutational Aesthetics
  by Huey Copeland, Northwerstern University, Chicago
• 4.30-5pm Talk