Defining Whiteness: Joseph Pennell, Henry Ossawa Tanner, and the Immutable Imprint of the Printer's Mark

The Society of Design Arts, AIGA Baltimore, and Stevenson University co-hosted this online talk by Lori N. Johnson, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Art History, Morgan State University, Baltimore, Maryland.

Johnson's research examines the role of the graphic arts in helping to establish and maintain racial and ethnic hierarchies in the United States. Rather than simply focusing on stereotypes of marginalized groups, such as Jews and Blacks, this paper argues that graphic artists, while combining visual art with mass communication, used the power of print media to define whiteness by creating denigrating images of marginalized groups, and limiting these same groups access to the profession.

By looking specifically at the figure of the celebrated American illustrator Joseph Pennell, Johnson's paper argues that the ultimate goal in producing the images of Blacks and Jews as inferior through linguistic binaries was to define Whites as superior, and thus justify America’s racial and ethnic hierarchies.

ABOUT THE PRESENTER
Lori N. Johnson specialized in modern and contemporary art, particularly in the nineteenth century. In her research, she focus on the relationship between discourse and cultural practice with an emphasis on how art normalizes the operations of power through the representation of class, race, gender and sexuality. Her current research projects include a study on early African-American photographers, and how their images of blacks both before, during, and after the Civil War reveal a history and legacy of the black experience beyond that of victimization. In addition to her study on early black photographers, she has published essays on the Post-Impressionist artist Pierre Bonnard and she is currently completing publications on the sculptor Meta Warrick Fuller, French landscape painter Camille Corot, the Pictorialist photographer F. Holland Day, and the architect Julian Abele.

Credits

This program was co-hosted by the Society of Design Arts (SoDA), AIGA Baltimore and Stevenson University.

Lori N. Johnson | Presenter
Richard Stanley | SoDA Program Leader and Moderator
Raquel Castedo | SoDA Producer and AIGA Baltimore Host
Valerie Anderson | AIGA Baltimore Producer