Met's Loss, PAFA's Gain
By Richard Carreño
[Writers Clearinghouse News Service]
Curators, even at the stellar Metropolitan Museum of Art, can blunder. Such was the case early last year when the Met presented at an ambitious retrospective of 19th-century American art that, not surprisingly, drew plentifully and wisely from permanent collections at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Of course, we encountered the usual Philadelphia 'persons' of interest: Thomas Eakins, Charles Willson Peale, Winslow Homer, and the like. But, to my mind, there was a conspicuous omission. Nowhere to be found in the 'American Stories' show was the masterful African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), a PAFA graduate and Eakins acolyte. Some one had dropped the ball.
That oversight is now about to be corrected. Thanks to PAFA. And the La Salle University Museum of Art.
The biggest nod in the new-found Tanner recognition -- call it even a revival -- goes to PAFA, which will launch a gargantuan public meditation early next year on the Tanner oeuvre. That bow to the long-neglected artist (viz the Met show) will be 'Modern Spirit,' an exhibition curated, organized, and brilliantly marketed by PAFA with accompanying publications, lectures, and even a children's book. The show will be at the academy from 28 January to 15 April, then will soldier on later in the year with the Tanner banner to the Cincinnati Art Museum and to the Houston Museum of Fine Arts.