From the Bijou Gallery leaflet: “In this part of the world, Christian imagery predominantly includes European white looking characters. Feeling a need to expand the visual representation of people from scripture to include different ethnic backgrounds for my next painting, I was delighted to find Henry Ossawa Tanner’s The Annunciation. This Mary is middle eastern Jewish. Tanner, a Black man, paints Mary sensitively as a calm, intelligent, and chaste young woman with dark hair and olive skin. Tanner painted first in a heavily racially prejudiced America and then moved to Paris to blossom as an artist in the early 20th century. His non-classical angel reminds me of the Eldils in Out of the Silent Planet, a powerful novel by C. S. Lewis.”

original dimensions: 24 x 36

medium: Oil on canvas

Original sold. Click the box below to order prints and other products.