Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Good Shepherd (Atlas Mountains, Morocco)
Henry Ossawa Tanner, born Pittsburgh, PA 1859-died Paris, France 1937 · ca. 1930
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).
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