The Trees, Early Afternoon, France

We continue the celebration of Black History Month with this rare work by the Black landscape painter William A. Harper. It depicts a bucolic scene in the French countryside. Canadian-born and Chicago-trained, Harper also studied informally in Paris with Henry Ossawa Tanner, the leading African American expatriate of his generation. Harper’s interest in painting regional subjects outside of Paris’s urban environs was shared by many American artists in these years. In transitional works such as this scene, Harper revealed the influence on his art of the French Barbizon painters as well as the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists.

If you would like to learn more about the Impressionists, check our Mega Course on them here.

P.S. Here is more on Henry Ossawa Tanner – African-American artistic pioneer!