Edward Mitchell Bannister was born sometime between 1826 and 1828 in Saint Andrews, a small seaport in New Brunswick, Canada. His father Edward Bannister, probably a native of Barbados, died in 1832, and Edward and his younger brother, William, were raised by their mother, Hannah Alexander Bannister, a native of Saint Andrews. Bannister's artistic talent was encouraged by his mother, and he won a local reputation for clever crayon portraits of family and schoolmates.
Edward studied anatomical drawing at Lowell Institute with artist and lecturer William Rimmer.
By 1850 Bannister had moved to Boston with the intention of becoming a painter, but because of his race, he was unable to find an established artist who would accept him as a student. He worked at a variety of jobs to support himself and by 1853 was a barber in the salon of the successful African-American businesswoman Madame Christiana Carteaux, whom he married in 1857.
Bannister continued to study and paint, and he began winning recognition and patronage in the African-American community. In 1854 he received his first commission for an oil painting, from African-American physician John V. DeGrasse, titled "The Ship Outward Bound." By 1863 Bannister was featured in William Wells Brown's book celebrating the accomplishments of prominent African Americans. His earliest extant portrait, of Prudence Nelson Bell, created in 1864, was commissioned by an African-American Boston family.
Bannister was active in the social and political life of Boston's African-American community. He belonged to the Crispus Attucks Choir and the Histrionic Club. His colleagues included such leading black abolitionists as William Cooper Nell, Charles Lenox Remond, Lewis Hayden, and John Sweat Rock. He was an officer in two African-American abolitionist organizations, added his name to antislavery petitions, and served as a delegate to the New England Colored Citizens Conventions in 1859 and 1865. In 1864 Bannister donated his portrait of the late Col. Robert Gould Shaw to be raffled at the Solders' Relief fair organized by his wife to assist the families of soldiers from the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Colored Regiment.
Bannister is said to have spent a year in New York City in the early 1860s apprenticed to a Broadway photographer; he advertised himself as a photographer from 1863 to 1866. An 1864 photograph of Bannister's early patron Dr. DeGrasse survives from that period. Bannister continued to paint and win commissions, and although he listed himself in city directories as a portrait painter until 1874, works like his "Untitled [Rhode Island Seascape]" and "Dorchester, Massachusetts", both painted around 1856, document his beginning interest in interpreting the New England landscape.
In the mid-1860s Bannister began to receive greater recognition in the Boston arts community. Sometime between 1863 and 1865, he received his only formal training, studying in the life-drawing classes given by physician and artist William Rimmer at the Lowell Institute. Bannister took a studio in the Studio Building from 1863 to 1866, where he was exposed to William Morris Hunt's promotion of the French Barbizon painters, and his paintings began receiving favorable notices from Boston critics. His growing confidence as an artist is indicated in two tightly painted monumental treatments of farmers and animals in the landscape, "Herdsman with Cows" and "Untitled [Man with Two Oxen]", both completed in 1869.
In 1869 the Bannisters moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where Bannister was immediately recognized by its growing art community. His first exhibit included "Newspaper Boy", created in 1869, one of the earliest depictions of working-class African Americans by an African-American artist, and a portrait of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison.
Bannister came to national attention in 1876, when his four-by-five-foot painting "Under the Oaks" won a first-prize medal at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition. This bucolic view of sheep and cows under a stand of oaks received widespread critical acclaim. But Bannister later remembered how, when he stepped forward to confirm his award, he was "just another inquisitive colored man" to the hostile awards committee.
Recognition for "Under the Oaks" brought Bannister increasing stature and success. By 1878 he sat on the board of the newly created Rhode Island School of Design, and he and fellow artists Charles Walter Stetson and George Whitaker founded the influential Providence Art Club. From 1877 to 1898 Bannister's studio was in the Woods Building, along with those of artists John Arnold, James Lincoln, George Whitaker, Sidney Burleigh, and Charles Walter Stetson. His Saturday art classes were well attended, and he won silver medals at exhibitions of the Boston Charitable Mechanics Association in 1881 and 1884. He exhibited throughout his career at the Boston and Providence Art Clubs, and also in New York City, New Orleans, Detroit, and Hartford, Connecticut. His work was much in demand by New England galleries and collectors, and in 1891 the Providence Art Club featured thirty-three of his works in a retrospective exhibition, to favorable reviews.
A number of Bannister's paintings, including "Woman Walking Down a Path" (1882), "Pastoral Landscape" (1881), "Road to a House with a Red Roof" (1889), and "Seaweed Gatherers" (1898), reflect his strong affinity for the style and philosophy of such Barbizon artists as Jean-François Millet and Camille Corot. But Bannister drew from numerous sources throughout his career, producing work in a variety of styles and moods, from serene vistas such as his "Palmer River", to the Turner-influenced dramatic skies of "Sunset", and "Untitled [Landscape with Man on Horse]", to free and lushly rendered views of woodland scenery such as "Untitled [Trees and Shrubbery]", in order to express what he described as "the infinite, subtle qualities of the spiritual idea, centering in all created things."
Although he is remembered primarily as a landscape painter, Bannister also drew his subjects from classical literature, still life, and religion. His prolific output as a marine painter is represented by numerous drawings, watercolors, and paintings such as "Ocean Cliffs" (1884), "Sabin Point, Narragansett Bay" (1885), and "Untitled [Rhode Island Seascape]" (1893).
As in Boston, Bannister associated with, and his work was collected by, leaders of Rhode Island's African-American community. Bannister and his wife continued their involvement in the concerns of their church and community. In 1890 Christiana Carteaux Bannister led the efforts of African Americans to establish a Home for Aged Colored Women in Providence, which is today known as the Bannister Nursing Care Center. Although he had been experiencing heart trouble in his later years, Bannister continued to paint. Indeed, his late works reveal an openness to experimentation and growth, with an increasingly abstract consideration of form and color on canvas.
On January 9, 1901, Bannister collapsed at an evening prayer meeting at the Elmwood Street Baptist Church and died shortly thereafter. Held in great esteem by Providence artists and patrons, he was the subject of lengthy tributes and eulogies. In May 1901 his friends in the Art Club organized a memorial exhibition of over one hundred Bannister paintings loaned by local collectors. Later that year, Providence artists erected a stone monument on his grave in North Burial Ground. Christiana Carteaux Bannister died two years later.
Bannister was well known in the artistic community of his 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. Greatly admired by his peers, in 1876 Bannister also won one of the highest prizes at the art exhibition of the United States Centennial Exposition, the country’s first national exhibition of art.
Apple Trees in a Meadow
Man on a Horse
Landscape with Woman Walking on Path
Approaching Storm
River Scene
After the Bath
Newspaper Boy
Untitled (Moon Over a Harbor)
Streamside
Woman Standing Near a Pond
Boston Street Scene (Boston Common)
Summer Twilight
Sunset
Driving Home the Cows
Landscape
The Farm Landing
Edward Mitchell Bannister adhered to the artistic traditions of Tonalism.
Quotations: "I was not an artist to them, simply an inquisitive colored man. Controlling myself, I said deliberately, 'I am interested in the report that Under the Oaks has received a prize. I painted the picture.' An explosion could not have made a more marked impression. Without hesitation, he apologized to me, and soon everyone in the room was bowing and scraping to me."
Bannister co-founded the Providence Art Club. Bannister also sang as a member of the Crispus Attucks Choir and the Histrionics Club. His social involvement earned him a relatively high position New England Society.
Quotes from others about the person
Mr. Bannister possesses genius... and he is daily gaining admirers of his talent and taste... It is indeed commendable in Mr. Bannister, that he has thus far overcome the many obstacles thrown in his way by his color, and made himself an honor to his race.
Through his profession, Edward met his wife, Christiana Babcock Carteaux, an accomplished hairdresser and proprietor of two tony establishments in Providence and Boston. The couple married in 1857. They never had children.
Christiana Babcock Carteaux Bannister was born in the “Dark Corners” of North Kingstown, daughter of African American and native Narragansett parents. Christiana, a successful businesswoman in both Providence and Boston, was Bannister’s champion – both financially and artistically. He always said: “My greatest successes have come through her.”
