Edward Mitchell Bannister

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Edward Mitchell Bannister
Edward Mitchell Bannister.jpg
Rhode Island Black Heritage Society (carte de visite)
BornNovember 2, 1828
Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada
Died(1901-01-09)January 9, 1901
Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.
Resting placeNorth Burial Ground
NationalityCanadian, American
Other namesEdwin, Ned
EducationLowell Institute
Known forPainting
MovementTonalism
Spouse(s)Christiana Carteaux Bannister

Edward Mitchell Bannister (November 2, 1828 – January 9, 1901) was a Black Canadian–American Tonalist painter. Like other Tonalists, his style and predominantly pastoral subject matter were drawn from his admiration for Millet and the French Barbizon School. Bannister lived for most of his life in New England, where he was a member of the Boston abolition movement and a founding member of the Providence Art Club.

Landscape, 1897. SCAD Museum of Art

Biography[edit]

Boston Street Scene (Boston Common), (1898–99). The Walters Art Museum.

Bannister was born in St. Andrews, New Brunswick. His father Edward Bannister, who was probably from Barbados, died in 1832, so Edward and his brother William were raised by their mother Hannah Alexander Bannister.[1] Bannister credited his mother with igniting his early interest in art. She died in 1844, however, so Edward and William moved to live on the farm of the wealthy merchant Harris Hatch.[2] Together the brothers found work aboard ships. Bannister became a ship's cook. He moved with William to Boston in the late 1840s.[3][4]

In Boston, Bannister at first became a barber. He had aspirations of painting but had difficulty finding an apprenticeship or academic programs that would accept him, likely due to racial prejudice. He would later express his frustration with being blocked out of artistic education: "Whatever may be my success as an artist is due more to inherited potential than to instruction" and "All I would do I cannot ... simply for the want of proper training."[2] At first, he was self-taught and received his first oil painting commission The Ship Outward Bound in 1854 from an African American doctor, John V. DeGrasse.[1]

Bannister met Christiana Carteaux in 1853 when he applied to be a barber in her salon. They married on 10 June 1857; both were members of Boston's abolitionist movement.[3] They boarded for two years with Lewis Hayden and Harriet Bell Hayden at 66 Southac Street, a stop on Boston's Underground Railroad.[5] Carteaux lobbied for equal pay for black soldiers during the Civil War and also organized the soldiers' relief fair in 1864. Bannister donated his portrait of Robert Gould Shaw to raise money for the cause.[1] And Bannister was part of Boston's African American artistic community, which included Edmonia Lewis, William H. Simpson, and Nelson A. Primus.[1] He also sang and acted as a member of both the Crispus Attucks Choir and The Histrionic Club. Bannister served as a delegate for the New England Colored Citizens Conventions in 1859 and 1865, and his name appears on petitions published in Boston's abolitionist newspaper The Liberator.

In 1855, William Cooper Nell acknowledged Bannister's rising artistic status in his book The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, and by 1858, Bannister was listed as an artist in Boston's city directory. Around 1862, he spent a year training in photography in New York, likely to find better work to support his painting practice, after which he did work as a photographer, take solar plates, and tint photos. Bannister's earliest commissioned portrait was of Prudence Nelson Bell in 1864, which is around when he found studio space at the Studio Building in Boston. Bannister eventually studied at the Lowell Institute with the artist William Rimmer for about a year.[6] Because of his daytime photography business, he mostly took his drawing classes at night. Through Rimmer and the community at the Studio Building, Bannister was inspired by the Barbizon school-influenced paintings of William Morris Hunt, who had studied in Europe and held numerous public exhibitions in Boston around the 1860s. He also formed a temporary painting partnership with Asa R. Lewis that lasted only the year of 1868 to 1869.

Despite his early commissions, Bannister still struggled to receive recognition for his work due to racism in the US: an 1867 article in the New York Herald belittled both him and his work, stating "[...] the negro has an appreciation for art while being manifestly unable to produce it." The article reportedly spurred his desire to achieve success as an artist.[6] Supported by Carteaux, Bannister became a full-time painter from 1870 on, which is around when they moved to Providence, Rhode Island.[3] He first took a studio in the Mercantile National Bank Building and eventually moved his studio to the Woods Building in Providence, where he shared a floor with artists like Sydney Burleigh and became friends with Providence painter George William Whitaker. Bannister finally received commendation for his artistic skill when he won first prize for his large oil Under the Oaks at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial.[6] Even then, the jurors tried to rescind his award until the other exhibition artists protested.[7][8] On the award, Bannister stated: "I was and am proud to know that the jury of award did not know anything about me, my antecedents, color or race. There was no sentimental sympathy leading to the award of the medal."[2]

As his career matured, Bannister received more commissions and accumulated many honors, several from the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanics Association (silver medals in 1881 and 1884).[1] He was an original board member of the Rhode Island School of Design in 1878, and in 1880, Bannister joined with other professional artists, amateurs, and art collectors to found the Providence Art Club to stimulate the appreciation of art in the community. Their first meeting was in Bannister's studio in the "Wood Building" at the bottom of College Hill. He was the second to sign the club's charter, served on its initial executive board, and taught regular Saturday art classes.[9] He also submitted many paintings to Boston Art Club exhibitions. Through his teaching, he became a mentor to younger Providence artists, like Charles Walter Stetson: "Stetson mentions Bannister frequently in his diaries, claiming that 'He is my only confidant in Art matters & I am his.'"[2] In the 1880s, Bannister bought a small sloop, the Fanchon, and he would spend his summers sketching, painting watercolors, and sailing Narragansett Bay.

Bannister died of a heart attack on January 9, 1901, while attending a prayer meeting at his church, Elmwood Avenue Free Baptist Church. After his death, the Providence Art Club held a memorial exhibition in his name. In the exhibition pamphlet, they wrote:

"His gentle disposition, his urbanity of manner, and his generous appreciation of the work of others, made him a welcome guest in all artistic circles. ... He painted with profound feeling, not for pecuniary results, but to leave upon the canvase his impression of natural scenery, and to express his delight in the wondrous beauty of land and sea and sky."[10]

He is buried in the North Burial Ground in Providence, under a stone monument designed by his friends.[11]

Artistic style[edit]

Although committed to freedom and equal rights for Afro-Americans,[4] Bannister did not directly represent those issues in his paintings. He is primarily known for his idealised landscapes and seascapes, but he also executed portraits, biblical and mythological scenes, and genre scenes. An intellectual autodidact, his tastes in literature were typical of an educated Victorian painter, including Spenser, Virgil, Ruskin and Tennyson, from whose works much of his iconography can be traced. His work reflected the composition, mood, and influences of French Barbizon painters Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, and Charles-François Daubigny. Defending Millet from critics, Bannister saw him as the "profoundest, most ... spiritual artist of our time" who voiced "the sad, uncomplaining life he saw about him — and with which he sympathized so deeply."[2] He had an affinity for Native American thought.[why?]

In preparing a painting, Bannister would often make pencil or pastel studies in preparation for larger oil paintings.[2] Several of his compositions use classical, mathematical methods like the Golden Ratio or "Harmonic Grid." His paintings are noted for Bannister's delicate use of color to depict shadow and atmosphere. His later palette exhibited brighter, but more muted colors: the Boston Common scene he painted late in his life is a notable example.[12]

Legacy[edit]

Bannister was the only major African American artist of the late nineteenth century who developed his talents without European exposure; and he was well known in the artistic community of Providence and admired within the wider East Coast art world. After his death, Bannister was largely forgotten by art history for almost a century for various reasons, principally racial prejudice. Following the civil rights movement in the 1970s, Bannister's work was again celebrated and collected. The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame inducted Bannister in 1976, and in 1978, Rhode Island College dedicated its Art Gallery in Bannister's name with the exhibition: Four From Providence ~ Alston, Bannister, Jennings & Prophet.[13] This event was attended and commented on by numerous notable political figures of the time and supported by the Rhode Island Committee for Humanities and the Rhode Island Historical Society. The New York-based Kenkebala Gallery held two exhibition's of Bannister's work, one in 1992 in collaboration with the Whitney and one in 2001 on the centennial of Bannister's death.[14] From June 9 to October 8 2018, the Gilbert Stuart Museum held an exhibition honoring Bannister and Carteaux's relationship "My Greatest Successes Have Come Through Her": The Artistic Partnership of Edward and Christiana Bannister as part of its Rhode Island Masters exhibition series.[15] Bannister's portrait of Christiana Carteaux was the center of the exhibition.

In September 2017, a Providence City Council committee unanimously voted to rename Magee Street (which had been named after a Rhode Island slave trader) to Bannister Street, in honor of Edward and Christiana Bannister.[16]

The historian Anne Louise Avery is currently compiling the first catalogue raisonné and major biography of Bannister's work.[17]

House[edit]

In Providence, Bannister and Carteaux lived at 93 Benevolent Street from 1884 to 1899. The house was built in 1854 and is now known as "The Vault" or "The Bannister House."[18] The house was owned by Brown University until 2016. After its disrepair made it unsuitable for residence, Brown renovated the property and restored it to its original appearance.[19] It was sold to Professor Jeff Huang as part of the Brown to Brown Home Ownership Program. Before its renovation, the house was on the Providence Preservation Society's 2001 list for most endangered buildings in Providence.[18]

Important works[edit]

  • The Newsboy [Boston Newsboy] [Newspaper Boy] (1869; Oil; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.)[20]
  • Under the Oaks (1876; Oil; Unknown)
  • River Scene (1883; Oil on canvas; Honolulu Museum of Art)
  • Sabin Point, Narragansett Bay (1885; Oil on canvas; Gardner House, Providence, Rhode Island)
  • Palmer River (1885; Oil on canvas; Private Collection)
  • The Farm Landing (1892; Oil on canvas; King Gallery of Fine Art)
  • Moon Over Harbor (1868; Oil on fiberboard; Smithsonian American Art Museum)
  • Last Light (1890s; Oil on wood panel; Baltimore Museum of Art)

Gallery[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e "Edward Mitchell Bannister | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Holland, Juanita Marie (1992). Edward Mitchell Bannister, 1828-1901 / Kenkeleba House, New York, Whitney Museum of American Art at Champion, Stamford, Connecticut. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art.
  3. ^ a b c "Edward M. Bannister biography". www.edwardbannister.com. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  4. ^ a b "African Americans in the Visual Arts: A Historical Perspective". web.archive.org. 30 August 2006. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  5. ^ Davis, Paul. "5 Rhode Islanders who laid the groundwork for later activists". providencejournal.com. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  6. ^ a b c Perry, Regenia A. (1976). Selections of Nineteenth-Century Afro-American Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 13–14.
  7. ^ "Newport, 1890–91". www.metmuseum.org. Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  8. ^ The location of Under the Oaks is unknown. It was sold to a "Mr. Duffe" of Boston for $1500. Perry 1976, 13–14. It was described by a Professer J. P. Sampson "a four by six feet picture, representing in the foreground, a herd of sheep along the [stream] while further in the back-ground is a beautiful ascent, with a cluster of oaks, wide spread in their branches, like a great shed; and beneath this shelter can be seen numerous cows and sheep taking shelter from the storm." Holland 1992.
  9. ^ Miner, George Leland; Chesley Worthington, W; Atwood, Louis D. Providence Art Club, 1880-2005. Providence Art Club. pp. 127, 132.
  10. ^ Edward Mitchel Bannister : memorial exhibition, Providence Art Club, May 1901. Providence Art Club. 1901. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  11. ^ "Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901) - Find A..." www.findagrave.com. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  12. ^ "Boston Street Scene (Boston Common)". The Walters Art Museum. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  13. ^ "Edward Mitchell Bannister". Rhode Island College. Retrieved 2014-03-16.
  14. ^ "Search Statement : Kenkeleba Gallery (New York, N.Y.)". rihs.minisisinc.com. The Rhode Island Historical Society. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  15. ^ "Edward Mitchell Bannister ~ June 9 - October 8, 2018". Gilbert Stuart Birthplace & Museum | North Kingstown, Rhode Island. 4 June 2018. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  16. ^ Mitra, Mili (1 November 2017). "Mitra '18: In support of Bannister Street". Brown Daily Herald. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  17. ^ "Artist: Bannister, Edward Mitchell (1828-1901)". Catalogues Raisonnés in Preparation. or Art Research (IFAR)-Catalogues Raisonnés in Preparation. Retrieved 13 September 2020.
  18. ^ a b "'The Vault' on Benevolent St. remains closed, for now". The Brown Daily Herald. September 29, 2010. Retrieved 2010-09-30.
  19. ^ Coelho, Courtney (13 May 2015). "Brown to renovate historic Bannister House". News from Brown. Brown University. Retrieved 15 May 2015. The house at 93 Benevolent Street, once home to African American artist Edward Mitchell Bannister and currently owned by Brown University, will be fully renovated, returned to its original wood exterior ...
  20. ^ "Newspaper Boy by Edward Mitchell Bannister / American Art". si.edu. Retrieved 2 May 2015.
  21. ^ "Palmer River". The Athenaeum. Retrieved 5 August 2015.

Bibliography[edit]

  • Bannister, Edward Mitchell. Edward M. Bannister: A Centennial Retrospective. Newport, R.I.: Roger King Gallery of Fine Art, 2001. OCLC 49568395 Edward M. Bannister: a centennial retrospective. (WorldCat.org)
  • Bearden, Romare and Harry Henderson, A History of African American Artists from 1792 to the Present (Pantheon, 1993).
  • Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe, Sharing Traditions: 5 Black Artists in 19th-Century America. Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Pr., 1985, pp. 69–82.
  • Holland, Juanita Marie and Corinne Jennings, Edward Mitchell Bannister, 1828-1901. Kenkeleba House, 1992, ISBN 0874270839
  • Perry, Regenia A., Free within ourselves: African American artists in the collection of the National Museum of American Art. Smithsonian Inst., 1992. pp. 23–27.
  • Van Siclen, Bill, "The Varied Landscape of Edward Bannister's Career". The Providence Journal, L. Nov 01 2001. ProQuest. Web. 26 Oct. 2017.
  • Whitaker, "The Idealist". Providence Magazine, February 1914.

External links[edit]

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