Henry Ossawa Turner

The artist I read about today was Henry Ossawa Turner (1859-1937). Pictured here are perhaps his two most famous works: The Banjo Lesson, and The Annunciation. According to Terry Glaspey, in Turner's depiction of Mary  "we are reminded that God communicates to perfectly ordinary human beings in perfectly ordinary circumstances... there is receptivity in her body language, an openness to God's will."

 Turner was raised by a father who was a free black pastoring an AME church in Philadelphia, and a mother who was a former slave rescued by the Underground Railroad. Turner overcame racism to become America's first internationally-acclaimed African-American painter. Unfortunately, in order to accomplish this dream, he first had to leave the USA and move to Paris, where he lived out the rest of his days.