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JANUARY, 1970

My Meeting
With Henry O. Tanner
By HALE WOODRUFF

[[Image of Tanner]]
HENRY O. TANNER

[[Image of Woodruff]]

Almost 42 years have passed since I met Harry O. Tanner. Naturally, I do not remember the exact words which made up our conversation during the better part of that day we  spent together. Yet I shall try, at least, to reconstruct the nature, quality and spirit of the dialogue in which we engaged. In this attempt I shall employ a written form in the following article in which quotations are used, trusting that the reader will understand that they do not constitute a verbatim report of the occasion. They are used only as a means in my effort to recapture the substance of our meeting and to have the reader relive it, although vicariously, with me. (Mr. Woodruff recently retired as Professor of Art, New York University.)

LONG before my earlier art school days I had always admired the art of Henry O. Tanner. I had seen only reproductions of it in magazines and in the Art Press but even these, at the time, were enough to impress me. Soon after my arrival in Paris in 1927 for the purpose of continuing my studies, I decided I would make an effort to see him as soon as I could. I learned that he was then living in semi-retirement in Etaples, a small Normandy town. I had received no answers to the letters I had written him, but my determination to see him was not shaken; letter or no letter, I was going to Etaples.
It was a brisk day in the late winter, or early spring of 1928, when I took the train from Paris bound for that small town. During the trip, I was continually asking myself, "What should I say to him? Should I congratulate him on the many honors that he has received, among which are medals and purchases from some of the leading museums in America and Paris, and should I mention one of the most important of all - his having been honored by the French Government in its naming him a 'Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur' in 1902?" I decided against such an approach; I would "play it by ear."
Upon reaching Etaples the sun had begun to set. The aged taxi I had engaged to take me to his house, which was located in the countryside, was driven by a young man who really didn't know the way; we could not find the house. On returning to the village I put up in a small auberge for the night. The next morning my taxi driver was waiting for me at the door. During the night he had been supplied with accurate directions to "La Maison Tanner," as he informed me it was called by the townspeople who knew him. As our ride took us through tree-lined dirt and pebbled roads, I began to wonder what Mr. Tanner was like. I was soon to discover that I was on my way to meet a remarkable man of profound intelligence and scholarship, and, as I was also to learn, a man of personal dignity and elegance.
He was to reveal himself to me as being critically aware of the aesthetic implications of art and of the relevance to it of his own work.
PRESENTLY, we were at the house. I don't actually recall having seen it; I was concentrating only on whether anyone would be there to answer my knock. I support Mr. Tanner saw us from the road for he was there at the door to meet us. Quickly I spoke.
"Good morning. My name is Hale Woodruff and

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*PORTRAIT BY THOMAS EAKINS, OIL, CA. 1900, HYDE COLLECTION