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Accession #	32.10
Artist	Henry Ossawa Tanner
Title	The Arch
Date	1919
Medium	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	39 1/4 x 38 3/16 in. (99.7 x 97 cm) Frame: 42 7/8 x 42 x 2 5/8 in. (108.9 x 106.7 x 6.7 cm)
Marks	Incised lower left: "H.O. TANNER"
Signed	Signed lower left: "H.O. TANNER / PARIS July 13 191[9]"
Credit Line	Gift of Alfred W. Jenkins
Location	Visible Storage: Case 23, Screen J (Paintings)

Curatorial Remarks: In this dramatic nocturnal scene, Henry Ossawa Tanner recorded the Celebration of the Dead, held on July 13, 1919, in Paris to honor those who died defending France during World War I. Here, the crowd is rendered as a largely anonymous mass; the figures converge before a brilliantly illuminated cenotaph, or empty tomb, temporarily erected behind the Arc de Triomphe. As in many of Tanner’s religious nocturnes, the cool cerulean palette and muted tonalities evoke a solemn, even spiritual, mood.

Paris was a familiar subject for Tanner, an African American expatriate artist of international renown who resided in the French capital and in Brittany for most of his adult life. During these decades abroad, Tanner experienced racial prejudice to a lesser degree than he had in the United States and enjoyed greater artistic freedom and opportunity.