Study for Christ and Nicodemus on a Rooftop

Henry Ossawa Tanner, born Pittsburgh, PA 1859-died Paris, France 1937 · ca. 1923

This study for Christ and Nicodemus on a Rooftop made Henry Ossawa Tanner's reputation. The story of Nicodemus visiting Christ at night spoke to African American worship habits that Tanner remembered from his youth: After emancipation, freed slaves continued to meet at night, as they had done when their masters had forbidden them to read the Bible (Mosby, Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1991).