American Art Collaborative

In 1870, Edward Bannister and his wife moved from Boston to Providence, Rhode Island. The state capital had a rapidly growing immigrant population at that time, and African Americans struggled for job opportunities. Despite these difficult circumstances, Bannister established himself by tapping into the market for pastoral landscape scenes, fashionable among wealthy Providence patrons. Dealer Seth M. Vose popularized these works by importing Barbizon paintings from France to Rhode Island. (Hartigan, Sharing Traditions, 1985