The Good Shepherd

As artists like Hartley looked towards rural Maine, others like Henry Ossawa Tanner traveled even further afield, forsaking Philadelphia and Atlanta for Paris and the Middle East. Tanner painted The Good Shepherd during one of several trips to the Holy Land. Tanner, the son of the minister of the first independent African-American Episcopal church in the United States, was particularly drawn to religious imagery, and created a large body of religious paintings. Although painted far from the United States, many interpreted these works as closely allied with domestic issues and concerns. Tanner was the first African-American student to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and fled the United States for more egalitarian Paris partly due to his unequal treatment in American art schools. Through paintings like The Good Shepherd, Tanner sought to convey a spirit of compassion and equality that, as he famously said, might “make the whole world kin.”