Arts and Culture - Art Focus EXPLORING FREEDOM Artists struggle to portray their community. Learn how Edmonia Lewis, Henry O. Tanner and Laura Wheeler Waring depicted African American life and people in their sculptures and paintings. African American artists of the 19th century, including Lewis, Tanner and Waring sought to present an alternative to the stereotypical images of African Americans common at the time by presenting them as full-fledged participants in American society. These artists were successful in portraying their community during a time when art was still confined to European aesthetics. Most African American artists who could manage the expenses traveled to Europe to study. These artists mastered the European traditions but the era's move toward realism and personal expression allowed African American artists to begin exploring their own identity in their artwork. Edmonia Lewis (1843 - 1911) Lewis, whose mother was Chippewa Indian and whose father was a freeman of African descent, was born in upstate New York in 1843. Upon entering Oberlin College, where she studied literature, she changed her name from Wildfire to Mary Edmonia. In 1863, Lewis moved to Boston to study under a portrait sculptor. Funds from the sale of a medallion of John Brown, leader of the rebellion at Harpers Ferry and a bust of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, commander of the all African American 54th Massachusetts Infantry of the Union Army, enabled Lewis to study in Europe. Lewis continued her studies of neoclassical forms in Italy where she made Forever Free, her most famous work. Lewis' last known major work, Death of Cleopatra, was presented at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Lewis's focus on African Americans and Native Americans - -deemed questionable at the time -- as well as the disappearance of abolitionist patronage may have contributed to her decline in popularity as an artist. [Illustration: Forever Free (1867)] Henry O. Tanner Henry Ossawa Tanner was born in 1859 in Pittsburgh into a middle class family. At the age of 13, after observing an artist at work at a neighborhood park, Turner decided to become an artist. Tanner's father, a bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, discouraged his artistic pursuits, hoping that he would instead enter the ministry. However, at the age of 21, Tanner enrolled in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. There his interest turned to landscapes. His teacher, Thomas Eakins, a noted genre painter, encouraged him to paint scenes from everyday life. In 1893, Tanner painted The Banjo Lesson, a realistic study of African American life. By portraying an elder teaching a boy how to play the banjo, Tanner showed a positive and dignified image of African Americans. In 1895, believing he could not fulfill his artistic aspirations in America, Tanner settled in Paris. There, he focused on religious paintings, winning much critical acclaim for Daniel in the Lion's Den and The Resurrection of Lazarus. [Illustration: Banjo Lesson (1893)] Laura Wheeler Waring (1887 - 1948) Born in Hartford in 1887, Waring was the daughter of Rev. Robert Wheeler, a pastor at Connecticut's first all African American church and Mary Wheeler, an amateur artist and teacher. Upon graduation in 1914 from Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Waring was awarded a scholarship to study in Paris. There, she studied romanticism, which stressed emotion and rejected the idealization and order that typified ancient Greek and Roman art. Waring focused her artistic endeavors on portraiture and was among the artists displayed in the country's first all African American art exhibit, held in 1927 by the Harmon Foundation, an organization that promoted the work of African American artists, writers, educators and scientists. The Harmon Foundation later selected Waring to paint portraits of outstanding African Americans, including W.E.B. Du Bois and Marian Anderson. Originally part of the national 1944 Harmon Foundation Traveling Exhibit, these paintings were designed to combat stereotypical portrayals of African Americans. Although Waring made more trips to study in Europe, her main focus was on making art education available to African Americans. She worked as director of the art department at Pennsylvania's Cheyney State Teachers College until her death in 1948. [Illustrations: Ann Washinton Derry (1927); Frankie]