Facts about TannerHenry Ossawa Tanner was the son of an affluent , well educated African-American family. His father was a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. He persued an artistic career in a higher institution. Tanner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1879. At the Academy, Tanner joined Thomas Eakins' coterie. Tanner sought to represent black subject with dignity, so he wrote"Many of the artists who have represented Negro life have seen only the comic, the ludicrous side of it, and have lacked sympathy with and appreciation for the warm big heart that dwells within such a rough exterior." The banjo had therefore become a symbol of derision, and caricatures of insipid, smiling African-Americans strumming the instrucment were a cliche. Most of Tanner's works were religious. He was age 13 when he decided to be an artist when he saw a painter at work during a walk in Fairmount Park near his home.