Edward Mitchell Bannister

Edward Mitchell Bannister won a first prize at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial and had to argue his way into the building to collect it, because the organisers had not expected a Black artist. The judges reconsidered the award once they learned who had painted it, then confirmed it.

Born in New Brunswick, he settled in Providence, Rhode Island, and painted landscape in a tonal Barbizon manner: cattle in meadows, wooded banks, weather moving through. The handling is soft edged and the colour muted, closer to Corot than to the Hudson River painters he overlapped with.

He helped found the Providence Art Club and worked largely outside the New York gallery system. His wife Christiana, a businesswoman, supported the household through the early years. Recognition faded after his death in 1901 and only returned properly in the later twentieth century.