Answer: Henry Ossawa Tanner was an artist, and he was among the first African American artists to gain national attention for his art.

Henry O. Tanner was born into a middle class family in 1859 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His family moved to Philadelphia when Tanner was still a child, and he was educated at the Roberts Vaux School, a predominantly African American school. He decision to become an artist came when he was a young teenager, but his pursuit of art as a career was frowned upon by his father. He was a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and he wanted his son to enter the ministry. Despite this, Tanner applied to and was accepted by the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1879. There he was taught by Thomas Eakins, who encouraged him the direction of landscape painting.

Tanner didn’t complete his studies at the academy, and he left early to teach art and open a gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. He stayed there for two years and then moved to Paris, France, in the early 1890s. He died there in 1937. His time in Paris was Tanner's most prolific, and it was there that he developed his realist style. He became known for his life studies, such as The Banjo Player (1893), and religious works, such as Daniel in the Lions' Den (1895) and Return of the Holy Women (1904).

In HSP's library are a number of books recounting Tanner's artistic career, including Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit (call number N 6537 .T35 A4 2012 FOLIO) and Henry Ossawa Tanner: American Artist (call number Gt .045 M424). HSP also has a number of collections that highlight the history of art and artists in Philadelphia, such as those of Benjamin West (#3149), John Neagle (#2112), the Sartain family (#1650), and Violet Oakley (#3336).