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The Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco)
Henry Ossawa Tanner (born Pittsburgh, PA 1859-died Paris, France 1937)
ca. 1930
- Medium
- oil on fiberboard
- Classification
- Paintings
- Dimensions
- 29 7/8 x 36 in. (75.8 x 91.3 cm)
- Culture
- Morocco
- Museum
- Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Robbins
- Rights
- CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Tweens profiles and older: its subjects are known and suit older children. How works are placed
View at the Smithsonian Institution
About this work
In 1912, Henry Ossawa Tanner traveled to Morocco to see the Atlas Mountains. In this painting he downplayed the story in favor of the impressive landscape itself. Tanner’s son Jesse remembered that The Good Shepherd was his father’s favorite subject. The artist believed that “God needs us to help fight with him against evil and we need God to guide us” (Jesse Tanner in Mathews, Henry Ossawa Tanner, American Artist, 1969).
