"Edward-Mitchell-Bannister" {1828-January 9,1901}

Was a Black Canadian-American Tonalist Painter.Like other Tonalists,his style are predominantly pastoral subject matter were drawn from his admiration for Millet and the French Barbizon School.


He was born in St.Andrews,New Brunswick and moved to New England in the late 1840s,where he remained for the rest of his life.Edward was well known in the artistic community of adopted home of  Providence Rhode Island and admired within the wider East Coast art world (he won a bronze medal for his large oil "Under the Oaks" at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial),he was largely forgotten for almost a century for a complexity of reasons,principally connected with racial prejudice.


With the ascendency of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1970s,his work was again celebrated and collected.In 1978,Rhode Island College dedicated its Art Gallery in his name with the exhibition:"Four From Providence -Alston,Bannister,Jennings & Prophet." This event was attended and commented on by numerious notable political figures of the time,and supported by the Rhode Island Committee for Humanities and the Rhode Island Historical Society.Events like this,across the entire cultural landscape have ensured that his artwork and life will not be again forgotten.


Primarily known for his idealized landscape and seascapes,Edward also executed portraits,biblical and mythological scenes,and genere scenes.An intellectual autodidact,his taste in literature were typical of an educated Victorian painter,including Edmund Spenser,Publis Vergilius Maro,John Ruskin and Alfred Tennyson,from whose works much of his iconography can be traced.


Edward died of a heart attack in 1901 while attending a prayer meeting at his church,Elwood Avenue Free Baptist Church.He is buried in the North Burial Ground in Providence.