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A city skyline is silhouetted in plum purple against a vivid peach and butter-yellow sky in this horizontal landscape painting. The brilliant sky is reflected in the water below, where a boat is moored along a riverbank. The scene is loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout. A wedge-shaped piece of olive green could be land or a dock in the lower right corner of the composition. A few people standing near the boat tied to a pier there are loosely painted with strokes of dark green and gray. A shallowly arched bridge marches across the river in the middle distance. Two towers and a few rounded buildings of the skyline beyond are outlined against the twilight sky. The artist’s signature is partially legible in the lower left corner: “F.F. Gut H.O.T.” It was also dated “July 10, 1902” but only the y of “July” is visible.

The Seine, c. 1902

Henry Ossawa Tanner

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 87

We see the city of Paris from the banks of the Seine River as night begins to fall. The buildings in the distance are hazy. The entire scene is bathed in soft hues of yellow, pink, and purple, lending it a dreamlike quality.

Although this subject is typically French, the artist is not. Born in Philadelphia, Tanner moved to France in 1891 to escape the racism he experienced as a Black artist in the United States. He would remain abroad for the rest of his life, becoming one of the first African American artists to earn international fame.

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Painted 11 years after Henry Ossawa Tanner first settled in Paris in 1891, this rapidly executed plein-air oil sketch is one of the artist’s rare depictions of the French capital. Topographically accurate, the view is from the right bank of the Seine looking west toward the twin towers of the Palais du Trocadero, the ornate convention center erected for the 1878 Exposition Universelle. A diffuse, hazy light fills the scene, which is devoid of human activity save for a solitary figure at the lower right. Utilizing short, loose brushstrokes laden with paint, Tanner captured the scattered reflections of light across both river and sky.

Art historian John Wilmerding observed that The Seine is surprisingly modern when compared with the majority of Tanner’s works, noting that “the soft colors and gauzy silhouettes, the open expanse of water and sky, and the high horizon serving to flatten the spatial recession are all Whistlerian in character.” Perhaps intended as a memento for a friend in Philadelphia, The Seine was an impromptu study and not destined for exhibition. Though small, this exceptionally evocative painting possesses some of the mood and mystery characteristic of the artist’s better-known religious subjects.

More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II, pages 196-198, which is available as a free PDF (21MB).

Object Data

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 22.8 x 33 cm (9 x 13 in.)

framed: 41.9 x 52.1 x 6.4 cm (16 1/2 x 20 1/2 x 2 1/2 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of the Avalon Foundation

Accession Number

1971.57.1

Artists / Makers

Henry Ossawa Tanner (artist) American, 1859 - 1937

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Detail Information

Inscription

lower left: F.F. Gut[ekunst] / H.O. T[anner] / [...]y 10, 1902; on cardboard backing now removed: Presented to / Mr. F. F. Gutekunst / H.O. Tanner / Seine 1902 Paris

Provenance

Frederick F. Gutekunst [1831-1917], Philadelphia.[1] private collection; Graham Williford, Fairfield, Texas; purchased 1971 by NGA.

[1] The painting is inscribed on the reverse: "Presented to / Mr. F. F. Gutekunst / H. O. Tanner 1902 Paris", a reference to the artist's otherwise undocumented friendship with the noted Philadelphia photographer Frederick Gutekunst. Tanner presumably brought this painting to America 1903 and presented it to Gutekunst at some point during his lengthy stay in the country.

Associated Names

Gutekunst, Frederick F.
Private Collection (NGA Former Owner)
Williford, Graham

Exhibition History

1991: Henry Ossawa Tanner, Philadelphia Museum of Art; Detroit Institute of Arts; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M. H. De Young Memorial Museum, 1991-1992, no. 37, repro.

2002: L'impressionnisme américain 1880-1915, Fondation de l'Hermitage, Lausanne, 2002, no. 50, repro.

2003: After Whistler: The Artist and His Influence on American Painting, High Museum of Art, Atlanta; The Detroit Institute of Arts, 2003-2004, no. 60, repro.

2006: Artists of the Commonwealth: Realism and its Response in Pennsylvania Painting, 1900-1950, Westmoreland Museum of American Art, Greensburg; Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Altoona; Erie Art Museum; James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, 2006-2007, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1980: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1980: 246, repro.

1980: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1980: 17, no. 49, color repro.

1981: Williams, William James. A Heritage of American Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1981: color repro. 161, 185.

1988: Wilmerding, John. American Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art. Rev. ed. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1988: 156, no. 55, color repro.

1991: Mosby, Dewey F., Darrell Sewell, and Rae Alexander-Minter. Henry Ossawa Tanner. Exh. cat. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1991: 134, no. 37.

1992: American Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 365, repro.

1997: Mittler, Gene A., and Rosalind Ragans. Understanding Art. New York, 1997: 236, 295, fig.15-10.

1998: Torchia, Robert Wilson, with Deborah Chotner and Ellen G. Miles. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 196-198, color repro.