Due to the enormous difficulties encountered by African Americans in the pursuit of the fine arts, evidence of black painters before the late nineteenth century comes not from paintings presently in museums or private collections, but from newspapers advertising their services. As with early American art in general, African American art largely consisted of folk arts and crafts produced anonymously for everyday use. As a result, very little work produced before the Civil War, which we would today identify as “art,” survives. In spite of the difficulties dealt with by artists, both free and slave, skilled African American fine artists began to appear as early as the late colonial period.
Joshua Johnson
Joshua Johnson (c.1763 – c.1824) was an American painter from the Baltimore area with African and European ancestry. He is often viewed as the first person of color to make a living as a painter in the United States, known for his naïve paintings of prominent Maryland residents.
John Jacob Anderson and Sons, John and Edward, ca. 1812, by Joshua Johnson, in the Brooklyn Museum It was not until 1939 that the identity of the painter of elite 19th-century Baltimoreans was discovered by art historian and genealogist J. Hall Pleasants, who believed that thirteen portraits were painted by one Joshua Johnson. Pleasants attempted to put the puzzle of Johnson's life together; however, questions on Johnson's race, life dates and even his last name (Johnson or Johnston) remained up until the mid-1990s, when the Maryland Historical Society released newly found manuscripts regarding Johnson's life.
Documents dated from July 25, 1782, state that Johnson was the "son of a white man and a black slave woman owned by a William Wheeler, Sr." His father, George Johnson (also spelled Johnston in some documents) purchased Joshua, age 19, from William Wheeler, a small Baltimore-based farmer, confirmed by a bill of sale dating from October 6, 1764.
Captain Thomas Sprigg, ca. 1805-1810, by Joshua Johnson, last recorded in a private collection in Maryland Wheeler sold Johnson the young man for £25, half the average price of a male slave field hand at the time. The documents state little of Joshua's mother, not even her name, and she may have been owned by Wheeler, whose own records stated that he owned two female slaves, one of whom had two children. A manumission was also released, in which George Johnson acknowledged Joshua as his son, also stating that he would agree to free Joshua under the conditions that he either completed an apprenticeship with Baltimore blacksmith William Forepaugh or turned 21, whichever came first.
Mrs. John Moale (Ellin North) and Her Granddaughter, Ellin North Moale. Oil on canvas, 40 1/2 x 35 3/8 in. Photographed in a private collection in Baltimore, Maryland Oddly enough, the manumission was signed and confirmed by justice of the peace Colonel John Moale who would, during the years of 1798-1800, commission Joshua to paint a portrait of his wife and granddaughter, Mrs. John Moale and Her Granddaughter, Ellin North Moale (illustrated at left).
Robert S. Duncanson
"English landscapes were better than any in Europe, and the English are great in water color while the French are better historical painters than the English. I am disgusted with our Artists in Europe. They are mean Copiests. My trip to Europe has to some extent enabled me to judge of my own talent. Of all the landscapes I saw in Europe (and I saw thousands) I do not feel discouraged." — Robert Scott Duncanson in Letter from Duncanson to Junius R. Sloan, 22 Jan. 1854. Platt R. Spencer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, Ill.
Robert Scott Duncanson was perhaps the most accomplished African-American painter in the United States from 1850 to 1860. He was born in Seneca County, New York, in 1821 to an African-American mother and Scottish-Canadian father, who sent his son to Canadian schools during his youth. In 1841 Duncanson and his mother moved to Mt. Healthy, Ohio, near Cincinnati. Little else is known about Duncanson's early life except that his second wife Phoebe was biracial, and the couple's only child, a son Mittie, was born in Cincinnati.
It is not known when or where Duncanson received his early artistic training, but by 1842 he had begun exhibiting in Cincinnati. In 1853 Duncanson made his first European trip, which was apparently financed by an abolitionist organization from Ohio. He visited England, France, and Italy, and may have traveled to Germany. In England, Duncanson was especially attracted to the landscapes of Claude Lorrain and J. M. W. Turner. Duncanson's trip to Europe probably did not last longer than a year as he returned to Cincinnati in 1854 and became the proprietor of a photography studio. But by the following year he had switched from photography to painting full time.
Grafton Tyler Brown
He was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His father was a freedman and was involved in the abolitionist movement. Brown worked for a printer in Philadelphia when he was fourteen. It was there where he learned the skill of lithography.
Grafton Tyler Brown, View of Yosemite Valley, 1886. Brooklyn Museum, 2012.92 Brown moved to San Francisco in the 1860s. He worked as a lithographer before becoming known as a painter in the 1880s. In San Francisco, he worked at Kuchel & Dressel from 1861–1867. In 1867 he opened his own firm and in 1878 he created The Illustrated History of San Francisco, which consisted of 72 topographical images of the city. Brown's work in the Bay Area and in the Nevada Territory included documentation of settlements, property sales, claims and city boundaries.
Grafton Tyler Brown, Old Faithful Geyser, Yellowstone National Park, 1887 The following year he sold his company. He left the Bay Area in 1882 and moved to Victoria, British Columbia. While there, he participated in the Amos Bowman Geological Survey. While participating in the survey, he served as draftsman and documented the Cascade Mountains. In 1884 he moved back to the United States and traveled throughout the northwest and west, painting such sites as Mt. Rainier. He lived in Portland, Oregon, painting landscapes and also traveling to Yosemite and Yellowstone National Park to paint.
Grafton Tyler Brown, Mount Tacoma, by 1918 In 1893, Brown moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota. In St. Paul he worked again as a draftsman, this time for the United States Army Corps of Engineers and for the city of St. Paul's engineering department. He died in St. Peter, Minnesotain 1918.
Brown's works are held in the collections of the Oakland Museum of California, Smithsonian American Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Edward Mitchell Bannister
Edward Mitchell Bannister (ca. 1828 – January 9, 1901) was a Black Canadian-American Tonalist painter. Like other Tonalists, his style and predominantly pastoral subject matter were drawn from his admiration for Millet and the French Barbizon School.
Edward Mitchell Bannister (American, 1828-1901). Untitled, ca. 1885. Brooklyn Museum, 2011.
Landscape Bannister was born in St. Andrews, New Brunswick and moved to New England in the late 1840s, where he remained for the rest of his life. Bannister was well known in the artistic community of his adopted home of Providence, Rhode Island and admired within the wider East Coast art world: he won a bronze medal for his large oil "Under the Oaks" at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial. But he was largely forgotten for almost a century for various reasons, principally racial prejudice. Bannister began his official career as an artist when an article in the 1867 New York Herald belittled both him and his work, stating "... the negro has an appreciation for art while being manifestly unable to produce it." Prior to working as a painter, Bannister worked as barber and tinted photos. In the late 1850s he attended lectures given by D. William Rimmer, a sculptor noted for his accuracy in rendering the human figure. Over the course of his career, Bannister was inspired by the Barbizon school-inspired paintings of William Morris Hunt who had studied in Europe and held numerous public exhibitions in Boston around the 1860s.
With the ascendency of the civil rights movement in the 1970s, his work was again celebrated and collected. In 1978, Rhode Island College dedicated its Art Gallery in Bannister's name with the exhibition: "Four From Providence ~ Alston, Bannister, Jennings & Prophet". This event was attended and commented on by numerous notable political figures of the time, and supported by the Rhode Island Committee for Humanities and the Rhode Island Historical Society. Events like this, across the entire cultural landscape, have ensured that his artwork and life will not be again forgotten. Although committed to freedom and equal rights for Afro-Americans, he chose not to inject those issues into his work, adopting instead a spiritual philosophy and individually expressive style which represented harmony and liberty on a more universal plane.
Although primarily known for his idealised landscapes and seascapes, Bannister also executed portraits, biblical and mythological scenes, and genre scenes. An intellectual autodidact, his tastes in literature were typical of an educated Victorian painter, including Spenser, Virgil, Ruskin and Tennyson, from whose works much of his iconography can be traced. His work was stunning, oftentimes reflecting the composition, mood, and influences of French Barbizon painters Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, and Charles-François Daubigny. He had an affinity for Native American thought which was reflected in the spirituality of his work. Progressively his understanding for color/color mixing improved and the quality of work increased, really digging into naturalistic territory.
Bannister died of a heart attack in 1901 while attending a prayer meeting at his church, Elmwood Avenue Free Baptist Church. He is buried in the North Burial Ground in Providence.
Edmonia Lewis
Mary Edmonia Lewis (c. July 4, 1844 – September 17, 1907) was an American sculptor who worked for most of her career in Rome, Italy. She was the first woman of African-American and Native American heritage to achieve international fame and recognition as a sculptor in the fine arts world. Her work is known for incorporating themes relating to black people and indigenous peoples of the Americas into Neoclassical-style sculpture. She began to gain prominence during the American Civil War; at the end of the 19th century, she remained the only black woman who had participated in and been recognized to any degree by the American artistic mainstream. In 2002, the scholar Molefi Kete Asante named Edmonia Lewis on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.
Edmonia Lewis's birth date has been listed as July 4, 1844. She was born in Greenbush, New York, which is now the city of Rensselaer.Her father was an Afro-Haitian, while her mother, Catherine Mike Lewis, was of Mississauga Ojibwe and African-American descent. Lewis's mother was known as an excellent weaver and craftswoman, while her father was a gentleman's servant. Her family background inspired Lewis in her later work.
By the time Lewis reached the age of nine, both of her parents had died. Her father died in 1847. Her two maternal aunts adopted her and her older half-brother Samuel. Samuel was born in 1835 to Lewis's father and his first wife in Haiti.[citation needed] The family came to the United States when Samuel was a young child. Samuel became a barber at age 12 when his father died.
The children remained with their aunts near Niagara Falls for about four years. Lewis and her aunts sold Ojibwe baskets and other souvenirs to tourists visiting Niagara Falls, Toronto, and Buffalo. During this time, Lewis went by her Native American name, Wildfire, while her brother was called Sunshine. In 1852, Samuel left for San Francisco, California, leaving Lewis in the care of a Captain S. R. Mills. Samuel provided for her board and education.
In 1856, Lewis enrolled at New-York Central College, McGrawville, a Baptist abolitionist school. At McGrawville, Lewis met many of the leading activists who would become mentors, patrons, and possible subjects for her work as her artistic career developed. During her summer term there in 1858, Lewis took classes in the Primary Department in preparation for college. Lewis was enrolled in primary courses in order to help advance reading and writings skills along with other subjects of academia that were not quite advanced enough for the Academic Department. In a later interview, Lewis said that she left the school after three years, having been "declared to be wild."
Until I was twelve years old I led this wandering life, fishing and swimming… and making moccasins. I was then sent to school for three years in [McGrawville], but was declared to be wild,—they could do nothing with me.
— Edmonia Lewis
Henry Ossawa Tanner
Henry Ossawa Tanner (June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937) was an American artist and the first African-American painter to gain international acclaim. Tanner moved to Paris, France, in 1891 to study, and continued to live there after being accepted in French artistic circles. His painting entitled Daniel in the Lions' Den was accepted into the 1896 Salon,the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
After his own self-study in art as a young man, Tanner enrolled in 1879 at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The only black student, he became a favorite of the painter Thomas Eakins, who had recently begun teaching there. Tanner made other connections among artists, including Robert Henri. In the late 1890s he was sponsored for a trip to Palestine by Rodman Wanamaker, who was impressed by his paintings of biblical themes.
Thomas Eakins, a Portrait of Henry O. Tanner, 1900. Oil on canvas, 24?" × 20¼". The Hyde Collection. Tanner was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the first of seven children. His middle name commemorated the struggle at Osawatomie between pro- and anti-slavery partisans. His father Benjamin Tucker Tanner (1835-1923) was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the first independent black denomination in the United States. Being educated at Avery College and Western Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh, he developed a literary career. In addition, he was a political activist. His mother Sarah Tanner was born into slavery in Virginia but had escaped to the North via the Underground Railroad. She was mixed race, and Tanner himself was either a quadroon or an octoroon.
The family moved to Philadelphia when Tanner was young. There his father became a friend of Frederick Douglass, sometimes supporting him, sometimes criticizing.
