August 2020 - A Long Look

The Good Shepherd by Henry Ossawa Tanner

Henry Ossawa Tanner became one of America’s most famous Black artists by depicting dream-like Bible scenes like this one. Click here to see it on the Gallery’s site. Clicking the image on their page will open a viewer that allows you to zoom in and pan around.

In today’s episode we’ll find out how he went from working in a flour mill to a successful artistic career in Paris and what he has in common with another artist, Richard Norris Brooke. And we discover a mystery about one of his early works!

“The Good Shepherd” by Henry Ossawa Tanner, American, c. 1918
Corcoran Collection (The Evans-Tibbs Collection, Gift of Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr.)

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SHOW NOTES (TRANSCRIPT)

“A Long Look” theme is “Ascension” by Ron Gelinas youtu.be/jGEdNSNkZoo

Episode theme is “Virtutes Instrumenti” by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4590-virtutes-instrumenti

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artwork information
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.195513.html

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/american-art-to-wwii/symbolism-america/a/tanner-angels-appearing-before-the-shepherds

https://www.antiquesandthearts.com/henry-ossawa-tanner-and-his-influence-in-america/

Tanner Bio
https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1919.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ossawa_Tanner#cite_ref-eoaah_6-0

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/henry-ossawa-tanner-4742

Tanner painting technique
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWxErF_nzd4

Slow Art Day http://www.slowartday.com

Autumn Drama by Alma Thomas

Black and white photo of Alma Thomas attending her exhibition opening. — Jack Whitten. Photograph of Alma Thomas at Whitney Museum of American Art exhibition opening, 1972. Alma Thomas papers, circa 1894-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Click here to view “Autumn Drama” on the Gallery’s site. Clicking the image on their page will open a viewer that allows you to zoom in and pan around.

Talk about a second act! Alma Thomas was a longtime art teacher in Washington DC, who began her art career after 35 years of teaching. She took inspiration from nature, color theory, and the works of artists she met through her involvement in the DC arts scene. All of this developed into her unique, colorful style.

We’ll find out how she found success at age when most people have long since retired and achieved national recognition most artists dream of. And what she had in common with Henri Matisse!

The US National Arboretum was a big inspiration to Thomas and this gorgeous photo shows where she might have gotten her color palette for Autumn Drama!

The columns installation at the US National Arboretum — The columns at the US National Arboretum, photographed by DC Gardens, courtesy of the National Arboretum.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (6.7MB)

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SHOW NOTES (TRANSCRIPT)

“A Long Look” theme is “Ascension” by Ron Gelinas youtu.be/jGEdNSNkZoo

Episode theme is “All About the Sun” by Quantum Jazz.

Autumn Drama
https://www.nga.gov/collection/art-object-page.195514.html

Alma Thomas information
https://www.nga.gov/features/african-american-artists.html

https://americanart.si.edu/artist/alma-thomas-4778

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Thomas

Alma W. Thomas : A Retrospective of the Paintings, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, 1998
(online book, best viewed in browser)

Whitney Museum of American Art exhibition catalog

The Art of Color: The Subjective Experience and Objective Rationale of Color, Johannes Itten

Alma Thomas. Autobiographical writing by Alma Thomas on her Earth paintings, before 1978. Alma Thomas papers, circa 1894-2001. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

National Arboretum in October photographed by DC Gardens, courtesy of the National Arboretum CC BY

Slow Art Day http://www.slowartday.com

Correcting the Canon: The Evans-Tibbs Collection

Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr. Photo courtesy of the Ubuntu Biography Project.

Welcome back to “A Long Look!” For the rest of the season, I’ll be presenting paintings from the Evans-Tibbs Collection, one of the most important collections of works by Black artists in America.

It was the mission of Thurlow Evans Tibbs Jr. to raise the profile of Black artists by collecting and exhibiting their work in his Washington DC gallery from the 1970s through the early ’90s and by documenting their careers in an enormous archive. He inherited his love of art from his grandmother, known as Madam Evanti, the first professional African American opera singer to perform internationally.

Joining me in this introductory episode is Tibbs scholar Sandy Bellamy, an adjunct art history professor at Howard University and manager of the Percent for Art Commissions program run by the Washington DC Department of General Services. Sandy takes us through the fascinating history of the collection, and the rich legacy of Black art scholarship born at Howard University decades earlier.