Portrait of Henry O. Tanner

Thomas Eakins painted Henry O. Tanner around 1902, capturing the African-American artist who had become one of the most important painters of religious subjects working in Europe. Tanner had moved to Paris in 1891 and achieved significant recognition at the Salon with Biblical paintings of exceptional quality. Eakins had taught Tanner at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the 1880s, and this portrait documents the bond between one of America's greatest realists and one of his most distinguished students. Now in The Hyde Collection, this is a sympathetic portrayal by a white artist of one of the era's most successful Black artists at the height of his international career.

Eakins approaches Tanner with the same unflinching directness he brought to all his portraits — no softening of features, no idealisation of setting. The paint is handled with controlled tonal precision, building the face from careful observation of light on form in the manner Eakins had practised throughout his career.