1923, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Flight into Egypt -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: This evocative Flight into Egypt is a mature work by Tanner, the leading early 20th-century African American artist who studied in Paris and resided in France—largely due to the systemic racism he encountered in the United States. Having begun his career painting moving images of African American life, by the mid-1890s he had shifted to biblical themes familiar from his childhood; his father, Benjamin Tanner, was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The subject of this work represents the Holy Family's escape from King Herod's assassins (Matthew 2:12-14)—resonating with contemporary themes of personal freedom and mobility.
1923, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Flight into Egypt -- Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York)
From the museum label: This evocative Flight into Egypt is a mature work by Tanner, the leading early 20th-century African American artist who studied in Paris and resided in France—largely due to the systemic racism he encountered in the United States. Having begun his career painting moving images of African American life, by the mid-1890s he had shifted to biblical themes familiar from his childhood; his father, Benjamin Tanner, was a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The subject of this work represents the Holy Family's escape from King Herod's assassins (Matthew 2:12-14)—resonating with contemporary themes of personal freedom and mobility.