A LANDMARK'S FUTURE (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/17/2022)

Written By Christopher Rogers

A LANDMARK'S FUTURE

The North Philadelphia rowhouse where Henry Ossawa Tanner and his family made history is at risk of demolition. How did it end up like this?

RAE ALEXANDER-MINTER KNOWS EXACTLY where Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City, a painting by her great-uncle Henry Ossawa Tanner, once hung in her family’s North Philadelphia home.

“I remember it so well,” she said of the painting, recalling its place in the library where her mother, the lawyer Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander, saw clients.

The painting of wind-whipped dunes under a hazy sunset hangs today in the Green Room at the White House. It was the first painting by a Black artist to be part of the White House’s permanent collection.

Christopher Rogers
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Home of Henry Ossawa Tanner—one of the first internationally renowned African American artists—faces demolition (11/25/22)
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Friends of the Tanner House featured in Philadelphia Tribune (9/17/2022)