The Thankful Poor

At the end of June, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York invites three Spanish‑speaking poets to create a poem inspired by the artwork The Thankful Poor (1894) by Henry Ossawa Tanner, a key work for its dignified and realistic portrayal of African American life in an adverse historical context. This session will feature the participation of the Guatemalan‑Colombian‑American poet Melissa Lozada‑Oliva, at the invitation of the Instituto Cervantes. Her work will help expand contemporary readings of the piece and strengthen the presence of Spanish within the museum’s programming. Painter Henry Ossawa Tanner spent time in North Carolina in the late nineteenth century, where he worked as a photographer and portrayed local African Americans—experiences that influenced his work The Thankful Poor. The painting depicts a child and an elderly man sharing a meal and a spiritual moment, offering a humane and dignified representation of the African American community, something innovative for its time. The work is situated in the post‑Reconstruction period in the United States, when, despite the abolition of slavery and certain social and political advances, many African Americans faced poverty, debt through sharecropping, and a growing climate of racism and white supremacy. This new collaboration adds to the joint projects we are carrying out with the Met in 2026 and helps consolidate a strategic institutional relationship aimed at fostering intercultural dialogue, research, and the development of shared initiatives in Spanish in the United States.