Moonlight Marine (Primary Title)

Edward Bannister, American, 1828 - 1901 (Artist)

Educational
1885
American
Oil on canvas
Place Made,United States
Unframed: 22 × 30 1/4 in. (55.88 × 76.84 cm)
Framed: 32 9/16 × 40 3/4 in. (82.71 × 103.51 cm)
2009.308

Edward Mitchell Bannister was the first African American artist to receive widespread acclaim. After a youth spent working on ships along the Atlantic seaboard, the Canadian-born artist eventually settled in Providence, Rhode Island, where he became one of the earliest faculty members of the Rhode Island School of Design.

Best known for pastoral landscapes inspired by Jean-François Millet and the French Barbizon school, Bannister invested his later passion—views of the Atlantic and Rhode Island coastline—with a more experimental vision and dramatic touch. Moonlight Marine is an exceptional example of the painter’s bolder mature style.

signed lower left, E. M. Bannister / 85
J. Harwood and Louise B. Cochrane Fund for American Art
Black Melancholia, Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annondale-on-Hudson, NY, June 25 - October 15, 2022

The Color of the Moon: Lunar Painting in American Art, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY, February 8 - May 12, 2019; James A. Michener Museum, Doylestown, PA, June 1 - September 8, 2019
Image released via Creative Commons CC-BY-NC

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