Sometimes it takes a while to catch up with the obvious. When there are obstacles like race and gender it usually takes even longer. Henry Ossawa Tanner, (African) American artist, is having one of those catch-up moments at his alma mater, The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, with the retrospective Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit. PAFA, founded in 1802 and located in the heart of Tanner's home town of Philadelphia, is this country's first art school. The school is still going strong, with a vigorous program much abetted by the Academy's important collection, housed in a landmark building by visionary architect Frank Furness. (PAFA made the news recently when the latest of Claes Oldenbug's public sculptures, Paint Torch, was installed there.)

There's a lot to say about Tanner's back story - born to a former slave, forced to spend his productive mature years abroad to escape the toxic racism that plagued - still plagues - this country - but out of respect to an artist who deserves to be seen for his work alone, I want to concentrate on the art. A little background: Tanner entered PAFA in 1879 and quickly distinguished himself. A precocious, diligent student with a gift for drawing, he enjoyed the special patronage of Thomas Eakins, the legendary teacher/artist and director during Tanner's years there.

Once out in the world he tried to make a living as an artist, with some success, but as for so many other African-American intellectuals and artists other countries offered better opportunities; Tanner moved to Paris in 1891. He made a successful, clearly satisfying life in France, establishing himself as a 'modern' painter known for religious subjects. Religion must have been a natural direction for him - his father was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church. In fact, his best work, whether intentionally religious or not, glows with an ethereal light that conveys a transcendent spiritual aura.

The Thankful Poor and The Banjo Lesson, two of Tanner's best known works (neither of them in the PAFA show) have that quicksilver kind of light that transforms the ordinary into something holy. I was surprised - but then not surprised - to realize on seeing the show that Tanner was in many respects a Symbolist. The late 19th century movement is a further explanation for his unearthly approach, but Tanner's work demonstrates a more grounded, sincere reason for his visions. (Picasso had a brief flirtation with Symbolism - a better known proponent was Edward Munch.)

Financed by one of the Philadelphia Wanamakers, Tanner took a very important trip to Palestine, to the source of much of his inspiration. The paintings from there are supreme illustrations of an artist at the top of his form. His long experience and consummate skill with light make him an immediate master of the strong, hot sunlight on the ancient walls, and the ensuing paintings of Bible subjects seem even richer and more evocative.

Back at home - in France - Tanner survived WWI, leaving some sketches and small paintings from that clearly painful time. One in the PAFA exhibit shows soldiers lined up in a mess tent; it's quickly drawn but still has an aura of something at once real and out of time. Tanner is certainly one of PAFA's most distinguished alumni - it's odd that they include David Lynch on their roster of 'famous graduates' but not Henry Ossawa Tanner. I hope they correct that.

Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit is at PAFA through April 15, 2012
http://www.pafa.org/tanner/

_ American Art is in the news right now. The Metropolitan Museum in New York has just completed a complete overhaul of the American Wing, one of the brightest jewels in the Museum's ever-fascinating profusion of courts, corners, and dedicated spaces. The official announcement describes 'expanded, reconceived, and dramatic new galleries' - I can't wait to see it and promise a full report when I do.

_ In the meantime, American Art is also on display in Paris at the Louvre, in the exhibit 'New Frontier: l'art americain entre au Louvre' (American Art Enters the Louvre.) As you can tell by the title, there is nothing reconceived here; this is the first time American Art has ever been shown in the Louvre. The show is a collaboration with three American Museums, and the focus is on the art of the 19th century, particularly that of Thomas Cole. Thus the apt title 'New Frontier'; Thomas Cole is considered the founder of the Hudson River School, the group of landscape painters including Frederick Church and Asher Durand, who painted the expansive (and fast disappearing) wide open 'new' world of the Americas.

_ Phenomenal artists with a jaw-dropping legacy of enormous, magnificent canvases, their brushes often seem to have been dipped as much in Romantic longing as in paint - luminescent lighting effects in many of the works evoke an intentionally moral and spiritual aura. The Met owns several prime examples of the Hudson River School, including Cole's The Oxbow: View from Mt. Holyoke, Massachusetts after a Thunderstorm (1836) and Heart of the Andes by Church. (Parisians will have to travel to New York to see these 19th c. American icons.)

_ The Met is not limited like the Louvre, which allows no art in the collection more recent than the 19th century, but most of what you'll see in the American Wing is of the Colonial period to the end of the 1800's,  including decorative arts as well as painting and sculpture. Among the prize works are favorite portraits by homegrown artists, most of whom made their names by starting with study in Europe - Benjamin West (born in Pennsylvania, who stayed on in London to become Painter to King George III and to train other American artists), John Singleton Copley, Thomas Sully, Charles Wilson Peale, and others. We owe many of our ideas of our Founding Fathers and the beginnings of this country to the portraits by these painters.

_ One of the most interesting discoveries in the Met's on-line American Collection for me was portraits by men who we know much better as scientists and inventors. Robert Fulton, before he gave himself over to the subject of steam power, was known for his delicate miniatures of fashionable ladies (as in this watercolor and ivory portrait of Susan Hayne Simmons) and especially for his fine attention to hair and jewelry.

_ Samuel F. B. Morse, who, like Fulton, trained in Europe, tried his best to make it as an artist, but finally gave it up - and invented the telegraph! This beautiful painting from 1836-37 is an allegorical portrait of his eldest daughter, Susan, as a muse of drawing.

_ There is something very right about this championing of both arts and science in one individual - it fits the American creation story of idealists with big ideas but with their feet on the ground, ready to roll up their sleeves and do what had to be done. American art on view in both New York and Paris attests, in many intriguing ways, to the beauty and magnitude of that founding philosophy.


Take a tour of the American Wing as it opens with the Director and Curator
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/20012492?vid=f43563f3-25d4-4793-b356-37656fa87504