Mixed Media on Japan paper. Signed A. Tanksley in gold ink in the image, lower right.
Image size 7 3/8 x 4 7/16 inches (187 x 113 mm); front card size 8 11/16 x 5 3/4 inches (221 x 146 mm).
Linoleum cut in black ink on Japanese paper, with brushed blue and gold paint, collaged with cloth batik and a metallic gold star; laid onto black construction paper, in excellent condition.
Created as a seasonal greeting, inscribed in the artist's hand on the inside panel Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Love, John & Ann.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
“Her work reflects the influence of her travels, the residential colors, the simple work habits, the loneliness, and the love and devotion to one’s spiritual beliefs. There is a oneness of artist and concept. Her love of life, despite social barriers and frustrations, is promoted in her work for audiences to witness and accept... Her paintings evoke a spiritual awakening. One is drawn to the intensity of color that prevails and identifies the moods of feasts and celebrations. ...Life is full of anticipation and dedication, of acceptance and hope, of faith and survival. These are all present in the works of Ann Tanksley.”
—Robert Henke, The Art of Black American Women: Works of Twenty-Four Artists of the Century, McFarland & Company, Inc., 1993.
Ann Graves was born in 1934 and raised in the Homewood community in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Drawn to art at an early age, Tanksley graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in 1956 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.
Following graduation from college, she married fellow Homewood native John Tanksley, and the couple moved to Brooklyn, New York. He worked as a photo retoucher in the advertising industry. Tanksley devoted herself to raising her daughters while working as an art instructor before fully pursuing her artistic pursuits. She was an art instructor at Queens Youth Center for the Arts from 1959-62, the Arts Center of Northern New Jersey in 1963, and a substitute art instructor at Malvern Public Schools in 1971. She also served as an adjunct art instructor at Suffolk County Community College from 1973-1975.
Tanksley continued her art education with studies at the Arts League of New York, The New School, the Paulette Singer Workshop in Great Neck, and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop, where she learned monotype printmaking. In addition to Blackburn and Singer, Tanksley studied with several renowned artists throughout her career, including Norman Lewis (artist), Balcomb Greene, and Samuel Rosenberg (artist).
Tanksley was one of the first members of Where We At: Black Women Artists, Inc., a New York-based women’s art collective founded by artists Kay Brown, Dindga McCannon, Faith Ringgold, and others connected to the Black Arts Movement. One of her early group exhibitions was the 1972 show “Cooking and Smokin’,” held at the Weusi-Nyumba Ya Sanaa Gallery in Harlem, NY. Where We At: Black Women Artists and other arts organizations of the time, such as the Ad Hoc Women’s Art Committee, sponsored exhibits, educational programs, and community initiatives to highlight the underrepresentation of women of color artists in the Black Arts Movement within major galleries and museums.
Tanksley began exhibiting her work as early as the late 1960s, but she gained critical acclaim and wider recognition in the 1980s and 1990s. A significant turning point in her career came with the creation of a large body of work inspired by the writings of Zora Neale Hurston. This work was exhibited across the United States during the 1990s and the early 21st century.
Her introduction to Hurston occurred in the 1980s when she discovered a copy of Hurston’s book, 'Their Eyes Were Watching God', among her daughter’s belongings. After reading the book, she became inspired to explore many of Hurston’s other works. Tanksley expressed in a 1996 New York Times interview, “I immediately fell in love with her writing. Her material is so visual that I feel we have much in common in interests, as well as in being African-American artists.”
This interest in Hurston led to her collaboration on 'Zora: A Psychoanalytic and Artistic Interpretation of the Life and Works of Zora Neale Hurston', a project with psychoanalyst Dr. Hugh F. Butts. Although the book was never published, Tanksley produced over 200 paintings and black-and-white monotypes based on Hurston’s writings. Reflecting on her 1993 exhibition, 'Zora Neale Hurston as Muse: Art of Ann Tanksley,' at the Maitland Art Center in Maitland, Florida, Tanksley described Hurston as both a “Spiritual Sister” and muse, stating, “I felt connected to her in so many ways.”
The Educator’s Guide to the Hewitt Collection of African American Art describes Tanksley as having "a sensitive eye for form and style. She has studied French and Caribbean art as well as the work of other African American artists. She utilizes color, line, and perspective to create a dramatic image that underscores content. Her graphic style incorporates flat areas of intense color that emphasize line and form, prompting comparisons to the work of Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse. Tanksley's loose brushwork adds vigor and energy to her compositions."
Tanksley has illustrated several books, including The Six Fools by Zora Neale Hurston and adapted by Joyce Carol Thomas (Harper Collins, 2006) and My Heart Will Not Sit Down by Mara Rockliff (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2012).
Her work has been featured in various anthologies and publications, including The Art of Black American Women: Works of Twenty-Four Artists of the Twentieth Century by Robert Henkes; Gumbo Ya Ya: Anthology of Contemporary African-American Women Artists by Leslie King-Hammond; Time Capsule: A Concise Encyclopedia of Women Artists by Robin Kahn; Forever Free: Art by African-American Women and Jewels: 50 Phenomenal Black Women Over Fifty by Michael Cunningham and Connie Briscoe.
Selected solo exhibitions of Tanksley's work include Acts of Art Gallery, New York, NY, 1973,1974; Spectrum II, Mount Vernon, NY, 1982; Dorsey Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, 1986; Berkeley Repertory Theater, Berkeley, CA, 1991; California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA, 1991; SOHO20, New York, NY, 1993; Eatonville Museum, Eatonville, FL, 1994; Maitland Center, Maitland, FL, 1994; Stella Jones Gallery, New Orleans, LA, 1997; Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Qatar, 2004; Avisca Fine Art Gallery, Marietta, GA, 2009.
Selected group exhibitions showing the artist’s work include Acts of Art, New York, NY, 1971; University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 1981; American Women in Art, Nairobi, Kenya, 1985; Museum of African American Art, Los Angeles, CA, 1992; National Arts Club, New York, NY, 1994; Kansas City Jazz Museum, Kansas City, MO, 1999; Hewitt Collection of African-American Art, Charlotte, NC, 1999; Stanford Center for the Arts, Stanford, CT, 2000; Connecticut Graphics Arts Center, Norwalk, CT, 2001; August Wilson Center for African American Culture, Pittsburgh, PA, 2017; 73 See Gallery, Montclair, NJ, 2019.
Tanksey’s work is held in the collections of the Studio Museum in Harlem, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Hewitt/Bank of America Collection at Medgar Evers College in Brooklyn. Additionally, her work is represented in notable private collections, including those of John and Vivian Hewitt and Oprah Winfrey.
