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The Banjo Lesson is an 1893 oil painting by African-American artist Henry Ossawa Tanner. It depicts two African-Americans in a humble domestic setting: an old black man is teaching a young boy – possibly his grandson – to play the banjo.
The painting was Tanner's first accepted entry into the Paris Salon, and has been held by Hampton University since 1894. The may be the first painting by an African American to paint other African Americans in a realistic, "genre" style of painting, in which scenes or events from everyday life are chosen for contemplation, including ordinary people engaged in common activities. The painting has elements of American Realism and of French Impressionism.[2]
The painting refuted widely held stereotypes held by white people in the United States in the 1890s, by presenting African Americans outside of those stereotypes. There was no caricature, no expectation that the subjects were trying to entertain, no hint that the people in the painting were dangerous, or fawning or lacking intelligence. This was radical for the era.
- ^ "The Banjo Lesson". Hampton University Museum, Hampton University.
In 1894, The Banjo Lesson was admitted into the Paris Salon, the most prestigious annual juried exhibition in the city. Robert C. Ogden, a philanthropist and chair of the then Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute's Board of Trustees, bought the painting and donated it to Hampton in November of 1894.
- ^ Dr Richard Stemp (7 June 2020). "Day 81 – The Banjo Lesson".
His style sits somewhere between Realism and Impressionism, the result of his training in the United States and his experiences in Paris, and it develops into something entirely original and personal...Realism – the lives of normal everyday people were dignified and given value
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