# Henry Ossawa Tanner artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/henry-ossawa-tanner/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T19:50:26.821Z
Quality: medium confidence, adequate sources

## Artist identity

- Nationality: American
- Common media: Painting

## Portrait

![Henry Ossawa Tanner](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Portrait_of_Henry_Ossawa_Tanner.jpg)
Unknown author Unknown author · Public domain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Henry_Ossawa_Tanner.jpg

## About Henry Ossawa Tanner

Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937) was an American, African-American painter who built much of his career in France. In 1891 he moved to Paris to study at the Académie Julian and later gained recognition within French artistic circles. His career became a landmark in American art history: he is widely described as the first African-American painter to achieve international acclaim. In 1923 the French government named him a chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Tanner's established identity spans American and European authority files and museum profiles, helping researchers distinguish him in collection and auction records. Collectors most often encounter his name in connection with paintings and public auction listings. The available evidence establishes his identity and broad career context more securely than it documents particular subjects, techniques, or series, so individual works should be assessed from their own cataloguing, images, inscriptions, provenance, and supporting documentation.

## Common works and media

The collected sources identify Tanner as a painter, making paintings the only well-supported common work type in this profile. They do not establish a reliable list of recurring subjects, supports, techniques, drawings, prints, sculptures, editions, or named series. Auction and appraisal research should therefore use the medium and object description documented for each individual work rather than infer a category from the artist's name alone.

## Market and appraisal context

The collected sources establish Tanner as a painter, and Appraisily maintains a public auction-record page for him, but this source pack provides no detailed lot-level evidence for particular media, subjects, dimensions, condition, provenance, or price patterns. An appraisal should therefore begin with secure artist identification and the exact catalogued description of the object. When public records are available, useful comparisons include closely matched catalogued works considered alongside their sale dates and realized prices. Medium, support, size, subject, date, condition, provenance, and attribution may matter in art markets, but this research does not establish how strongly any one variable affects Tanner's market. No price forecast or trend claim is warranted from this source set alone.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine researched artist identity with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. Claims are limited when the collected evidence does not support greater specificity.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1374436
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ossawa_Tanner
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500005351
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/64813803/
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50008686
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/62810
- National Gallery of Art: https://www.nga.gov/collection/artist-info.1919.html
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/henry-ossawa-tanner/
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Portrait_of_Henry_Ossawa_Tanner.jpg