“Museums covet his works. They're hard to find. They're expensive when they do find them. And they're often an embarrassing gap in the canon for museums that don't have them.”
“It's not just that we like him because he was an underdog. We love him because he found ways to succeed without becoming embittered. No one is making any apologies about his abilities on the basis of race. He is a major artist, period, end of story.”
“He's thinking of [his subjects] as ordinary people who are transformed by a touch from God, rather than the Renaissance depiction where people are glowing because of it.”
“Tanner got routinely left out of surveys of American art. It was really in the 1980s that people realized that you really needed to be paying attention to more than the usual artists we all grew up on. There was a whole other layer ... either because they didn't work in New York, they weren't close friends with the major critics, or they were artists of color or women or Southerners or Westerners.”
“When we closed there was a general feeling of shock and dismay. But people will be pleased with what has happened. I'm looking forward to watching this sleeping giant wake up.”
