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Hidden Blackness: Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901)
Hidden Blackness: Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901)
Hidden Blackness is the first major exhibition of Edward Mitchell Bannister’s work ever presented in Canada—124 years after the artist’s death. Born in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, Bannister was a self-taught, nineteenth-century, African American/Canadian painter of the Barbizon school known for pastoral landscapes and seascapes. In 1876, Bannister’s painting Under the Oaks (now lost) won the bronze medal (first place) at the Centennial Exposition Art Exhibition in Philadelphia, thus making him the first artist of African descent and the first Canadian to win a major art prize in North America. Before becoming a full-time painter, Bannister worked as a cobbler, shipmate, barber, and daguerreotypist. He was also a prominent abolitionist and philanthropist (along with his wife Christiana Carteaux Bannister), and co-founder the Providence Art Club, one of the oldest art societies in the United States.
Curator Dr. David Woods first began pursuing the presentation of a Canadian Bannister exhibition immediately after he organized In This Place (Anna Leonowens Gallery, Halifax, 1998), the first exhibition of African Nova Scotian art (co-curated with Dr. Harold Pearse). Woods, who is also a painter, first learned of Bannister’s career and achievements at age fourteen while listening to a Black History Moment broadcast from a Boston radio station. Later in his career as an artist and curator, Woods was shocked at how little was known about Bannister in Maritime and Canadian art circles, despite the artist’s success and reputation in the United States. This motivated him to organize an exhibition that would hopefully end widespread ignorance of Bannister’s work and elevate him to his rightful place in Canadian art history.
The story of Bannister’s life and art—from his humble beginnings in New Brunswick to success in the United States—is a remarkable testament to the strength and conviction of his artistic vision. Born in Saint Andrews, Charlotte County, to Hannah Alexander, a Black woman from the town, and Edward Bannister Senior a native of Barbados, Bannister’s family lived in a segregated Black village colloquially referred to as Slabtown (now buried under the famed Algonquin Resort’s golf course). Bannister was orphaned by age sixteen and left in the care of Harris Hatch, a wealthy lawyer, merchant, and Registrar of Charlotte County, for whom the artist’s mother worked as a maid. Bannister and his brother, William, worked as farmhands for Hatch and lived in one of his barns. Bannister’s interest in art emerged early and there are accounts of his drawings appearing on the barns and fences of Hatch’s farm. Much of his early life in Saint Andrews was overshadowed by the limited job opportunities and racism that Black New Brunswickers faced. In 1850, Bannister and his brother moved to Boston, where they both worked as a barbers and Edward eventually met Christiana Carteaux, a hairdresser, wigmaker, and entrepreneur of mixed African American and Narragansett heritage. Bannister married Carteaux in 1857, and she helped him pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a professional artist, first in Boston and later Providence, Rhode Island.
Hidden Blackness thus represents the artist’s Maritime homecoming. Featuring loans from the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the New Brunswick Museum, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, as well as the private collection of Marilyn Sandford, the exhibition will tour the region for a year, with presentations at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery (summer 2025) and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia (fall 2025). According to Dr. Woods, “Hidden Blackness will give the Canadian public its first glimpse of the creativity and excellence of Edward Mitchell Bannister’s artistry, while also providing an important opportunity to examine his early years in Saint Andrews, New Brunswick, as well as the life of nineteenth-century Black New Brunswickers in communities like Slabtown.”
Panel Discussion
Hear panellists Mary McCarthy Brandt, Thandiwe McCarthy, Aleya Michaud, Harvey Amani Whitfield, and David Woods for a riveting conversation about the long history of Black communities in the Maritime Provinces.
Aleya Michaud
Aleya Michaud is a Black Acadian artist from Grand Falls, New Brunswick, now based in Riverview. A self-taught artist, she is driven by an intuitive and exploratory approach to painting and drawing, embracing play as both a creative process and a way of engaging with the world. She serves as Assistant Director of Galerie Sans Nom and is a member of the New Brunswick Black Artists Alliance. Her work has been presented in solo exhibitions at Galerie Sans Nom and the Tidnish Bridge Art Gallery, with additional group showings at Gallery on Queen. She was recently an Artist in Residence at the Dieppe Arts and Culture Centre.
Dr. Mary McCarthy Brandt
Dr. Mary McCarthy Brandt is a distinguished scholar with a PhD in Social Justice from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. In 2015, she set a legal precedent with her landmark human rights case against Shoppers Drug Mart, which successfully challenged racial profiling. In 2022, she received an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from St. Thomas University, followed by the prestigious Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Medal in 2023. She is a proud sixth-generation African descendent in New Brunswick, whose great-great-great-great-great grandmother arrived in 1783 after fleeing a plantation in Virginia, USA.
Thandiwe McCarthy
Thandiwe McCarthy is a seventh-generation, African Canadian spoken word poet, writer, and public speaker. After a residency at Arteles, Finland, he began focusing on his writing practice. As the culture correspondent for Maritime EDIT magazine, he highlights Black community leaders and artists. He has delivered keynotes for the Atlantic Public Libraries Association and the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design’s 2024 graduation, and he has lectured on leadership at Saint Thomas University. He was a co-founder of the New Brunswick Black Artists Alliance and he has played a key role in helping to recognize August 1st as Emancipation Day in New Brunswick.
Dr. Harvey Amani Whitfield
Dr. Harvey Amani Whitfield is the Centennial Carnegie Chair in the History of Slavery in Canada at the University of King’s College (Halifax, NS). His area of research interest is Black migration—coerced and free—to the Maritimes during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Dr. Whitfield is the author of several books including Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815-1860; North to Bondage: Loyalist Slavery in the Maritimes; Biographical Dictionary of Enslaved Black People in the Maritimes; Black Slavery in the Maritimes: A History in Documents; and The Problem of Slavery in Early Vermont, 1777-1810.
Dr. David Woods
Dr. David Woods is a largely self-taught, multidisciplinary artist and arts organization leader from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. He was the organizer of the province’s first Black History Month (1984) and the founder of several arts and cultural organizations, including the Black Artists Network of Nova Scotia (1992). He has curated pioneering exhibitions of African Nova Scotian art, such as In This Place (1998), which featured over 100 years of African Nova Scotian artmaking, The Secret Codes: African Nova Scotian Quilts (2012-2024), and Hidden Blackness: Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901).
In the News
Renowned Black artist finally gets major N.B. exhibition — almost 200 years after he was born here (by ‘From Africville’ to ‘Hidden Blackness’: Revered painters featured in first exclusive exhibitions at home (by Nick Moore)
Honouring N.B. born Edward Mitchell Bannister: One of North America’s first prominent Black artists ( Paintings of NB-born Edward Mitchell Bannister come to Sackville courtesy of the Smithsonian (by Erica Butler)
Information Morning – Moncton (with Jonna Brewer)
Information Morning – Fredericton (with Jeanne Armstrong)
Information Morning – Saint John
Who was Edward Bannister: One Of The Best Canadian Painters You’ve Never Heard About (by Hillary LeBlanc)
Recovering Blackness: A review of Hidden Blackness: Edward Mitchell Bannister (1828-1901) (by Andrew Nurse)
Acknowledgements
This exhibition is organized and circulated by the Owens Art Gallery, Mount Allison University, and the Black Artists Network of Nova Scotia (BANNS). It was made possible thanks to generous funding from the Government of Canada and Mount Allison University. It features loans from the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the New Brunswick Museum, the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, and the Beaverbrook Art Gallery, as well as the private collection of Marilyn Sandford. PACART is the exclusive transportation provider of the exhibition.
Accessibility
This exhibition is located on the main-floor of the Owens. The stairs to the Owens from the entrance nearest the University Chapel have a handrail. There is also ramp access at this entrance, however, the ramp is steep. The stairs to the Owens entrance off York Street also have a handrail, but there is no ramp. The main floor of the Owens is wheelchair accessible. Our second-floor gallery is not wheelchair accessible. Two flights of stairs lead to the second floor. Find more information at owensartgallery.com/visit/accessibility/
Top Image: Edward Mitchell Bannister, Approaching Storm, 1886, oil on canvas, 102.0 x 152.4 cm, Collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of G. William Miller (1983.95.62)
