Exelon Corp. and the Exelon Foundation are sponsoring a Henry Ossawa Tanner exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and will this summer put 100 students in this region to work enhancing Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park, the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge and Wissahickon Valley Green Park.

The foundation approved a $150,000 grant to give students a paycheck and career skills in a summer jobs program to be run by the Student Conservation Association and the Exelon Foundation. The program will also put 150 Chicago youth to work on projects there.

“If we’re serious about conserving our natural areas and green spaces, we must encourage the environmental stewards of tomorrow,” said Steve Solomon, president of the Exelon Foundation.

The exhibition at PAFA is titled Henry Ossawa Tanner: Modern Spirit, and showcases Tanner’s paintings, photographs, prints, sculptures, watercolors and drawings. Tanner, a Philadelphia native, was America’s first internationally-renowned African American artist. He also studied under the tutelage of renowned potraitist Thomas Eakins.

The exhibition delves into Tanner’s life and career from his upbringing in Philadelphia in the years after the Civil War, his training at PAFA, and his success as an American artist at the turn of the 20th century.

The exhibit will appear at PAFA from Jan. 28 to April 15.

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Top Photo Credit: Henry Ossawa Tanner – Yale University Art Gallery