Henry Ossawa Tanner

CTL-E-6261 · Person · artist · 1859–1937

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-07452 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-6261.

Henry Ossawa Tanner was an American painter born June 21, 1859, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Benjamin and Sarah Tanner, and raised in Philadelphia, where the family relocated. He enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, among the first African Americans to do so, and studied with Thomas Eakins. In 1891 he moved to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian, taking up permanent residence in France during the 1890s and competing in the annual Paris Salons, where he found success and international renown unprecedented for an African American artist. His reputation was founded on paintings of religious subjects, including The Resurrection of Lazarus in 1896 and Nicodemus Visiting Christ in 1899, but for most Americans he is known for the early genre painting The Banjo Lesson, painted in 1893, showing an elderly African American man teaching a boy to play the banjo. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Design in 1910, and in 1923 the French government made him a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He died May 25, 1937, in Paris, aged 77.

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Scan Tail Wave 7 — 747 Program, FINAL Wave 13; seventh Scan Tail packet at the founder's 40-record size). Gate A (2026-10-16): Gate A CLEAR (hand-checked 2026-10-16): no Henry Ossawa Tanner entity, alias, or variant in the live graph (3,910 entities); the graph's only Tanner hit is Maudelle Tanner Brown Bousfield (CTL-E-0893), a different person. ID CTL-E-6261 free at staging. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger — Tier 4 corpus scan tail, corpus-gap-candidates-2026-10-15.json ranked #2828. The scan supplied the name string only; every fact is sourced under CTL-GOV-004. SCOPE GATE: The first African American painter to gain international acclaim; his Banjo Lesson is a foundational image of Black cultural transmission, and his Paris career anchors the graph's diaspora art history (GLOBAL-001). Vital status: DECEASED — died May 25, 1937, Paris, France, aged 77 (Wikipedia, accessed 2026-10-16; University of Delaware gives the life dates 1859–1937). STATISTICS — Life dates (accessed 2026-10-16): June 21, 1859 – May 25, 1937. Milestones: Pennsylvania Academy enrollment; Paris move 1891; The Banjo Lesson 1893; National Academy of Design election 1910; Legion of Honor chevalier 1923. No conflicting figures were found in the opened sources. MEDIA: photo HELD (named candidate only; no license claimed — PHOTO-001 verification deferred); chart staged in media_specs; video HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by name and variants, 2026-10-16); no near-miss title found.); audio HELD (HELD: No CTL-owned or rights-cleared matching-entity audio exists at staging.); map N/A (person/work/event record). MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Person records carry no map slot; maps attach to places and institutions.) | visual_assets = HELD: | chart = FILLED (Created for this packet (CTL graphic, CTL-PHOTO-001 lane) from the record's sourced facts.) | video = HELD (No matching-entity CTL Short in the Shorts Link Map (shorts-link-map-2026-10-15.json, 233 rows, checked by nam) | audio = HELD (No rights-cleared matching-entity audio staged; audio slot held pending a CTL-PHOTO-001-consistent rights basi)

Sources

• University of Delaware (UDaily), UD event provides opportunity to learn more about artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (April 18, 2012) (accessed 2026-10-16) — Tanner (1859-1937) born in Pittsburgh to Benjamin and Sarah Tanner; family relocated to Philadelphia; among the first African Americans to enroll at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; teachers included Thomas Eakins; Académie Julian in Paris; permanent residence in France during the 1890s; Paris Salon success and international renown unprecedented for an African American artist; reputation founded on religious subjects; The Banjo Lesson (1893), an elderly man teaching a boy the banjo — http://www1.udel.edu/udaily/2012/apr/tanner-colloquium-041812.html (primary source · build store)
• Wikipedia, Henry Ossawa Tanner (accessed 2026-10-16) — born June 21, 1859, Pittsburgh, died May 25, 1937, Paris, aged 77; first African-American painter to gain international acclaim; moved to Paris in 1891 to study at the Académie Julian; notable works The Banjo Lesson (1893), The Resurrection of Lazarus (1896), Nicodemus Visiting Christ (1899); elected to the National Academy of Design in 1910; chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1923 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ossawa_Tanner (build store)

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Record CTL-E-6261 · Combined Graph record U-07452 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 2 sources.
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