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2 books match the query 'American Artist'

cover of Henry Ossawa Tanner: American Artist

Henry Ossawa Tanner

American Artist

Marcia M. Mathews

University of Chicago Press, 1995

Mathews's standard biography of Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859-1937), based on extensive research in archives in this country and family records in France. An important artist in the salons of Paris, Tanner was born and studied in Philadelphia but left America for Europe, where his race would not stand in the way of his ambition. Providing a full account of the artist's life and art, Henry Ossawa Tanner gives readers insight into the art trends of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as well as into the struggle of African Americans of this period.

"[Tanner] ranks not only as the first truly distinguished Negro American artist but as one of America's first outstanding successes in the salons of Europe. In this work [Mathews] has significantly added to our knowledge of the history of American art."—John Hope Franklin, from the Foreword

"The book gives the main facts of Tanner's life and successfully places his artistic work in its historic context....It is a welcome and useful volume."—August Meier, Journal of American History
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cover of Rupert García: The Making of an American Artist, a Testimonio

Rupert García

The Making of an American Artist, a Testimonio

Mario T. García

Rutgers University Press, 2026

This is the first biography of the renowned American Chicano visual artist and activist Rupert García, drawing on fifty hours of interviews conducted over thirty years and accompanied by eighty images. This in-depth oral history gives an unparalleled look at García’s life and work, tracing his evolution as an artist and the political upheavals that shaped his life and worldview. 

Mario T. García’s testimonio places Rupert García’s art in historical perspective, from his beginnings as a working-class Mexican American from California’s Central Valley, his coming of age in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, his involvement in the antiwar movement during the San Francisco State student strike in 1968-69, and his participation in the Chicano Movement and beyond. Influenced by history and politics, García’s vital works of art represent a changing world through the eyes of an artist, speaking to issues of poverty, racism, capitalism, war, and the role of the artist in society.

His art—from revolutionary silkscreen posters to monumental pastels to portraits of political icons like Frida Kahlo, Che Guevara, and Dolores Huerta—serves to critique history and reassess it. It is work that will endure for generations to come. 

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