He is particularly remembered for his religious subject matter. The son of a minister, Tanner’s deep spirituality is reflected in his most of his work. Also, a former student at the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Tanner studied with Thomas Eakins—a man who had the greatest influence on Tanner’s early style. Tanner, perhaps the most famous Black art expatriate left the United States early in his career. Originally destined for Rome, he was smitten by Paris where he established a permanent residence. Tanner studied at the Académie Julian where his teachers included Jean Paul Laurens and Jean Joseph Benjamin-Constant. His strong tendency toward realism and his relatively conservative palette, was owed in part to the influence of his teacher and mentor Thomas Eakins.

In Tanner’s image The Savior, the central figure is seen serenely dutifully praying, while in Flight Into Egypt, Tanner evokes the gravity and solitude of the moment in his depiction of Mary and Joseph as two solitary figures on what must have been an arduous journey at such a late stage of her pregnancy. Marked by some of the browns and subdued hues, the image is akin to other Tanner works that show the influence of French academic traditions. At points in his career, however, Tanner’s work bears the influence of Impressionistic light and color and he gravitated toward more vibrant hues. In The Laundress, Tanner uses exuberant blue and green hues and bold, abbreviated brush strokes that create the feel of a beautiful windswept day.

Tanner’s work was, in many ways, in stark contrast to what was taking place in the Black arts community in the United States. He was no stranger, however, to the expatriate movement that drove scores of Black artists to Paris in the 1900’s. In fact, Tanner was aware the resurgence of Black art during the Harlem Renaissance and the modernist tendencies toward abstraction and distortion. Some of Harlem’s most well-known “influencers,” including Hale Woodruff, made a point of seeking out Tanner when they sojourned to Paris. Tanner is said to have graciously opened his studio to all who gravitated there and to have offered wisdom and advice to his admiring visitors.

To some extent Tanner seemed to remain aloof from the Black community in the United States. He did not align himself philosophically or in terms of his subject matter with Harlem Renaissance artists of his day. He rarely painted Black genre images and was not inspired by African imagery and motifs. Notably, however, Tanner’s Bajo Lesson and the Thankful Poor are two of the few images by the artist that include Black subjects. They most likely recall the time that the artist lived in the Blue Ridge Mountains and photographed some of its African-American residents. Some researchers emphasize that “he continued to have close ties to the United States, and was particularly invested in the struggle for African American equality. While he was proud of his contributions as an African American, he chose to live in France where he felt his race mattered less to other artists and critics.” In yet another sign of the artist’s empathy with the Black community, Tanner “delivered a paper entitled “The American Negro in Art” at the 1893 Worlds Congress on Africa.”

Toward the early 1900s, Tanner left the burgeoning popularity of Paris and to live in Brittany, a more rural area of France. In the more relaxing area of the countryside, Tanner adopted as his subject matter French peasants who lived in the area. Tanner also continued to use biblical themes in his work. “In 1895, Tanner painted Daniel in the Lion’s Den, which won an honorable mention in the Paris Salon the same year. Two years later he completed Resurrection of Lazarus, which so impressed Rodman Wanamaker, a Philadelphia merchant in Paris, that he decided to finance the first of Tanner’s several trips to the Holy Land.”

His Resurrection of Lazarus, purchased by the French, is now a part of the permanent art collection at the Louvre. “During the final decades of Tanner’s career, his 1895 painting, Daniel in the Lion’s Den, was awarded a silver medal at the Universal Exposition in Paris; the following year it received a silver medal at the Pan American exhibition in Buffalo.

“His first one-man exhibition of religious paintings in the United States was held in 1908, at the American Art Galleries in New York. Two years later, Tanner was elected a member of the National Academy of Design. In 1923 he was made an honorary chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor, France’s highest honor, and in 1927 he became a full academician of the National Academy of Design, the first African American to receive that honor. In his later years, Tanner was a symbol of hope and inspiration for African-American leaders and young Black artists, many of whom visited him in Paris. On May 25, 1937, Tanner died at his home in Paris.”