Art appreciation: Philadelphia artists pay tribute to the life of art collector Lewis Tanner Moore

Artists gathered at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts on Saturday to offer a palette of praise and praise songs for Lewis Tanner Moore, a respected art collector and curator who died on May 9 after suffering a heart irregularity at age 70.

Moore, the son of a lawyer from a historic and prominent Black American family, grew up in Philadelphia’s Mount Airy neighborhood. He was a retired social worker.

His lifelong passion was collecting art and championing the work of Black artists who were often overlooked in museums, galleries, and art history books.

“He was an unrelenting advocate for the artists and for opening up opportunities for artists who stirred his soul,” said Berrisford Boothe, an artist and professor at Lehigh University.

Boothe is also an adviser to the Petrucci Family Foundation Collection of African American Art. He said he could not have done the work he does advising the Petrucci Foundation on art without Moore’s guidance.

“Lewis will remain my intellectual mentor,” Boothe said.

Moore was a great-nephew of the internationally renowned artist Henry Ossawa Tanner, who studied at PAFA from 1879 to 1885.

“He was an unrelenting advocate for the artists.”

Moore’s passion for art began as a young student at Chestnut Hill Academy, his sister, Leslie Tanner Moore, told The Inquirer.

“He knew art was a big thing in our family, but he learned at school to really appreciate and do some of the art he loved.”

When he was about 11 or 12, he took an art class with a teacher who inspired him to love art, she said. By the time he was 16 or 17, he took another art class in which the textbook was H.W. Janson’s History of Art. The book focused mainly on artists who were white, male, and European.

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In an interview with The Inquirer in 2008, Moore said the absence of Black artists in the book disturbed him. So with the help of art teacher Barbara Crawford, he borrowed works by Black artists from friends and family and organized a small exhibition at the school. He was 17.

The 2008 interview was about an exhibit of Moore’s collection called “In Search of Missing Masters” that was being shown at the Woodmere Art Museum in Chestnut Hill.

The exhibition included 135 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by 94 artists. Most of the artists were from the Philadelphia area, but there were nationally known artists also: from Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence to Sam Gilliam and Barbara Chase-Riboud.

The artists and the art historian who spoke at PAFA Saturday praised him as an intellectual curator with a sense of humor that he sometimes wielded sharply. They individually took the stage in the auditorium of the Samuel M.V. Hamilton building, under a huge portrait of Moore illuminated on a large screen.

Curlee Raven Holton described Moore as “intellectual and insightful,” ”a ferocious collector,” and a “cultural warrior” for Black artists.

“He had faith in us [as artists] and he believed in us and our potential,” Holton said. “It was a battle to be acknowledged and be recognized.”

Philadelphia sculptor and ceramic artist Syd Carpenter read a letter that she said she had written to Moore:

“I want you to know that I still see you. I see you standing there tall, gray-bearded … quietly observing. You will remain a mentor. … Your mark is permanent. You will forever be remembered. You will forever be seen.”

“He was like a cousin, a brother, a friend.”

Richard Watson said he met Moore at the Sande Webster Gallery, one of the few Center City galleries that showed Black artists’ works when it opened in the late 1960s. Watson said they became friends after long conversations about art: “He was like a cousin, a brother, a friend.” Donald E. Camp, a photographer, said he and Moore and their wives enjoyed meals together with good conversation and rare French cheeses.

Among the artists in the audience were Barbara Bullock, James Brantley, and Allan Edmunds, the founder of the Brandywine Workshop and Archives.

And Anna O. Marley, Ph.D. and chief of curatorial affairs at PAFA, said she always thinks of Moore as “my irascible uncle.”

Marley had gotten close to Moore and his wife, Judy, when she organized and curated PAFA’s comprehensive exhibit of Henry O. Tanner’s works, “Modern Spirit” in 2012. But she had met him years earlier before she arrived at the academy.

“On a personal note, every time I see fireflies, I think about Lewis, and I will think about Lewis for the rest of my life when I see those fireflies,” Marley said.

She said the Moores often invited her family to dinners during firefly season, and they would sit on the porch and watch fireflies.

“Every time I see fireflies, I think about Lewis.”

Lewis Tanner Moore was born June 2, 1953, the third and youngest child of Lewis Tanner Moore Sr. and his wife, Jean Baxter Moore. Moore Sr., an attorney, was a founder of Philadelphia’s historic Pyramid Club, a club for Black professionals. Moore Sr.’s mother was Sarah Tanner Moore, a sister of Henry Ossawa Tanner.

Lewis Tanner Moore, the art collector, attended Henry Elementary for about two years and then enrolled at Chestnut Hill Academy, where he graduated high school. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and later earned a master’s in social work from Cambridge College in Boston.

In addition to his sister, he is survived by his wife, Judy Moore, and a host of relatives and friends. An older brother, Richard Baxter Moore, preceded him in death.

Leslie Tanner Moore told the audience that the Tanner family is supporting an art auction in Lewis Tanner Moore’s memory to benefit the Friends of the Tanner House, the nonprofit organization that has been raising money to stabilize the house where Henry Tanner lived as a teenager and young man at 2908 W. Diamond St.

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She asked artists present to talk with Christopher Rogers of the Friends of the Tanner House about donating artwork to be auctioned. The Friends of the Tanner House want to restore the house and develop community-centered art programs there.

Rogers said the Friends of the Tanner House is overwhelmed by the offer from the Tanner family to support an art auction.

“We are excited to take up this journey,” he said. “This is more than a boon to our fundraising to revitalize the Tanner Family House, but an ancestral-guided duty we must live out to fully honor and extend Lewis Tanner Moore’s singular legacy that we are still very much discovering.”

For more about the Friends of the Tanner House, visit savethetannerhouse.org.