Henry Ossawa Tanner paints The Banjo Lesson

Henry Ossawa Tanner, the first internationally acclaimed Black American fine artist, completed The Banjo Lesson in 1893. The painting depicts a tender intergenerational moment between an elderly Black man teaching a young boy, challenging racist caricatures of the era with dignified, humanizing portraiture. Tanner became the first Black American to achieve sustained recognition in the European fine art world.