Horace Pippin (February 22, 1888 – July 6, 1946) was a self-taught American artist who painted a range of themes, including scenes inspired by his service in World War I, landscapes, portraits, and biblical subjects. Some of his best-known works address the U.S.'s history of

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

and

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

. He was the first Black artist to be the subject of a monograph, Selden Rodman'
''Horace Pippin, A Negro Painter in America'' (1947
, and the ''New York Times'' eulogized him as the "''most'' important Negro painter" in American history. He is buried at Chestnut Grove Cemetery Annex in

West Goshen Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania West Goshen Township is a township in Chester County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 23,040 at the 2020 census. In 2013, ''Money Magazine'' voted West Goshen as the 10th best place to live in America. West Goshen has also been ra ...

. A Pennsylvania State historical Marker at 327 Gay Street,

West Chester, Pennsylvania West Chester is a borough and the county seat of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Located within the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the borough had a population of 18,461 at the 2010 census. West Chester is the mailing address for most of its neighb ...

identifies his home at the time of his death and commemorates his accomplishments.

Early life

He was born in

, on February 22, 1888, to Harriet Pippin; his father's identity is unknown. He grew up in and around

Goshen, New York Goshen is a town in Orange County, New York, United States. The population was 13,687 at the 2010 census. The town is named after the Biblical Land of Goshen. It contains a village also called Goshen, which is the county seat of Orange County ...

, but would return to West Chester in adulthood. In Goshen, he attended segregated schools until he was 15, when he went to work to support his ailing mother. As a boy, Horace responded to an art supply company's advertising contest and won his first set of crayons and a box of watercolors. As a youngster, Pippin made drawings of racehorses and jockeys from Goshen's celebrated racetrack. Prior to his service in World War I, Pippin worked as a hotel porter, a furniture packer, and an iron moulder. He was a member of St. John's African Union Methodist Protestant Church. In 1920, Pippin married Jennie Fetherstone Wade Giles, who had been widowed twice and had a six-year-old-son.

World War I

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, Pippin served in K Company, the 3rd Battalion of the 369th infantry regiment, known for their bravery in battle as the famous Harlem Hellfighters. The predominately Black unit faced a segregated US Army, especially before they were transferred to the command of the French Army. They were the longest serving U.S. regiment on the war's frontlines, holding their ground against enemy fire almost continuously from early April until the end of the war. The regiment as a whole was awarded the French Croix de Guerre. In September 1918, Pippin was shot in the right shoulder by a German sniper. The injury initially cost him the use of his arm and always limited his range of motion. He was honorably discharged in 1919. He was retroactively awarded a Purple Heart for his combat injury in 1945. He said of his combat experience:

I did not care what or where I went. I asked God to help me, and he did so. And that is the way I came through that terrible and Hellish place. For the whole entire battlefield was hell, so it was no place for any human being to be.

After the war, Pippin created four memoirs—one illustrated—that describe his harrowing military service in detail. He returned to war subjects periodically throughout the 1930s and 1940s, and later said that WWI "brought out all the art in me". File:Horace Pippen, Three Soliders on March, War Diary Notebooks.png, ''Three Soldiers on March'' File:Horace Pippin, Soliders with Gas Masks in Trench, War Diary Notebooks.png, ''Soldiers with Gas Masks in Trench''

Career

Pippin took up art in the 1920s, reportedly in part to rehabilitate his injured arm, and began painting on stretched fabric in 1930 with ''The Ending of the War: Starting Home''. He later explained his creative process: "The pictures which I have already painted come to me in my mind, and if to me it is a worth while picture, I paint it." He addressed a range of themes, from landscapes and still lifes to biblical subjects and political statements. Some draw on his personal experience of the war or turn-of-the-century domestic life. He was "discovered" when he submitted two paintings to a local art show—the Chester County Art Association (CCAA) Annual Exhibition—reportedly with the aid and encouragement of various locals, including CCAA co-founders art critic Christian Brinton and artist

N.C. Wyeth Newell Convers Wyeth (October 22, 1882 – October 19, 1945), known as N. C. Wyeth, was an American painter and illustrator. He was the pupil of Howard Pyle and became one of America's most well-known illustrators. Wyeth created more than 3,000 ...

. Brinton immediately organized a solo exhibition, cosponsored by the CCAA and the interracial West Chester Community Center, connected him with MoMA curators

Dorothy Miller Dorothy Canning Miller (February 6, 1904 – July 11, 2003) was an American art curator and one of the most influential people in American modern art for more than half of the 20th century. The first professionally trained curator at the Museum ...

and

Holger Cahill Edgar Holger Cahill (January 13, 1887 – July 8, 1960) was an Icelandic-American curator, writer, and arts administrator who served as the national director of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration during the New Deal in th ...

and, by 1940, the Philadelphia art dealer Robert Carlen and collector Albert C. Barnes. Pippin attended art appreciation classes at the

Barnes Foundation The Barnes Foundation is an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture. Originally in Merion, the art collection moved in 2012 to a new building on Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pen ...

in the spring 1940 semester. Carlen, Barnes, and, starting in 1941, dealer Edith Gregor Halpert played prominent roles in Pippin's career. In the eight years between his national debut in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

's traveling exhibition “Masters of Popular Painting” (1938) and his death at the age of fifty-eight, Pippin's recognition grew exponentially across the country and internationally. During this period, he had solo exhibitions in commercial galleries in Philadelphia (1940, 1941) and New York (1940, 1944), and at the

Arts Club of Chicago Arts Club of Chicago is a private club and public exhibition space located in the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, a block east of the Magnificent Mile, that exhibits international contemporar ...

(1941) and

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

(1942). Private collections and museums such as the

, the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

and the Whitney Museum of American Art acquired his works. His paintings were featured in annual or biennials at the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, Chicago, IL; Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA;

Corcoran Gallery of Art The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...

, Washington, D.C.;

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...

, New York, as well as thematic surveys at the Dayton Art Institute, OH;

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, Washington, D.C.;

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...

, Newark, NJ; and

Tate Gallery Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the U ...

, London, UK. In the catalogue for one of his memorial exhibitions in 1947, critic

Alain Locke Alain LeRoy Locke (September 13, 1885 – June 9, 1954) was an American writer, philosopher, educator, and patron of the arts. Distinguished in 1907 as the first African-American Rhodes Scholar, Locke became known as the philosophical architect ...

described Pippin as "a real and rare genius, combining folk quality with artistic maturity so uniquely as almost to defy classification."

Artworks

Pippin's oeuvre includes a variety of subjects and compositional strategies. He began in the 1920s by burning designs into wood panels—mostly snow scenes—and adding paint in one or two colors to highlight specific components of the image. His first oil painting, ''The Ending of the War, Starting Home'' (1930–1933), depicts a scene informed by his experience at the Battle of Sechault, where he was shot. (It does not depict the official German surrender on November 11, 1918, which happened as he was recovering in a French hospital.) He also made the frame and decorated it with hand-carved war materiel, including German and French helmets and weapons. He painted World War I several times thereafter in the 1930s and once more in 1945. 1941-2-1-cx

Pippin painted several religious subjects, both those illustrating Bible passages and more visionary statements like his ''Holy Mountain'' series. He was a religious man, staying close to the church throughout his life by teaching Sunday school and singing in his church choir. Crucifixion-1943

Among Pippin's most celebrated pictures are the three paintings of his ''Holy Mountain'' series, which are reminiscent of the bucolic ''Peaceable Kingdom'' paintings of Quaker artist

Edward Hicks Edward Hicks (April 4, 1780 – August 23, 1849) was an American folk painter and distinguished religious minister of the Society of Friends (aka "Quakers"). He became a Quaker icon because of his paintings. Biography Early life Edward ...

that depict predators and prey together. Pippin includes elements drawn for his own time to suggests that discord and harmony are never too far apart. The wooded backgrounds include soldiers, graveyards, war planes, and bombs that are at odds with the peace depicted in the foreground. In ''The Knowledge of God'' and ''The Holy Mountain III'', the tiny brown figure hanging in the trees refers to the ongoing scourge of

lynching Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...

in the segregated southern United States. He links concepts of destruction and peace by inscribing a significant date from WWI on each of the paintings. ''The Holy Mountain I'' is marked with "June 6, 1944", the date of the Allied landings at Normandy, known as of

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during World War II. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as D ...

. ''The Knowledge of God'' is marked "Dec. 7 1944," the third anniversary of the

attack on Pearl Harbor The attack on Pearl HarborAlso known as the Battle of Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service upon the United States against the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, j ...

. Lastly, ''The Holy Mountain III'' is marked "Aug 9, 1945", the day the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Some have argued that centrally placed shepherd figure resembles the artist. Pippin's dealer Robert Carlen took credit for exposing Pippin to Hicks' series as he was a principle advocate for both self-taught artists. Pippin painted two self portraits, including one seated at the easel. His painting of ''

John Brown John Brown most often refers to: *John Brown (abolitionist) (1800–1859), American who led an anti-slavery raid in Harpers Ferry, Virginia in 1859 John Brown or Johnny Brown may also refer to: Academia * John Brown (educator) (1763–1842), Ir ...

Going to his Hanging'' (1942) is in the collection of the

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

is part of a trilogy on the abolitionist sometimes credited with igniting the Civil War.
File:Horace Pippin, John Brown Going to His Hanging.jpg, Horace Pippin, ''John Brown Going to His Hanging'' Lady of the Lake MET ma1982

''Mr. Prejudice'', made in the midst of World War II at the request of an unidentified patron, is unique in Pippin's oeuvre for its experimental composition and symbolic program. The relatively small image—about the size of a magazine cover—sorts the figures by race. The lower left quadrant is filled with Black uniformed military, a medic, and a machinist, most of whom face forward toward the viewer. Some read the brown-skinned figure at center left, outfitted in an anachronistic WWI uniform, as a self-portrait. A similar group of white men fill the lower right quadrant, most of them turning toward the left. The upper register is dominated by a white man with a sledgehammer driving a wedge into a large V, a reference to the Allies' "

V for Victory ''V for Victory'', or ''V4V'' for short, is a series of turn-based strategy games set during World War II. They were the first releases for Atomic Games who went on to have a long career in the wargame industry. Like earlier computer adaptions ...

" slogan in WWII. African Americans devised the " Double V" campaign to advocate for military victory abroad ''and'' victory over racism at home. At upper left, a large, brown-skinned Statue of Liberty raises her torch to light the way to freedom. On the upper right, a broad, lighter-skinned figure dressed in red holds a noose and stares at Lady Liberty, while a hooded

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...

sman looms above him. Mr-prejudice-1943

Pippin's

genre paintings Genre painting (or petit genre), a form of genre art, depicts aspects of everyday life by portraying ordinary people engaged in common activities. One common definition of a genre scene is that it shows figures to whom no identity can be attached ...

are among his most popular works; see, for example, the ''

Domino Game Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces, commonly known as dominoes. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also ca ...

'' (1943), in the

Phillips Collection The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips and Marjorie Acker Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H. Laughlin ...

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

, and several versions of ''Cabin in the Cotton''. Some, including ''After Supper'' (ca. 1935–1939) and ''The Milkman of Goshen'' (1945)'','' relate to his childhood in New York State. Views of the everyday activities of Black families "tended to be relatively invisible to the white masses" before the Great Migration, so Pippin's domestic scenes offered a privileged view. Interior by Horace Pippin, 1944, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Interior by Horace Pippin, 1944, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Pippin also created images related to popular culture, including ''Old Black Joe'', based on the song ''

Old Black Joe "Old Black Joe" is a parlor song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864). It was published by Firth, Pond & Co. of New York in 1860. Ken Emerson, author of the book ''Doo-Dah!'' (1998), indicates that Foster's fictional Joe was inspired by a servant in th ...

;'' ''Uncle Tom'', based on the novel

Uncle Tom's Cabin ''Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly'' is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in two volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the U. ...

and its many adaptations, and maybe the

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...

and film Cabin in the Sky. He made two portraits of the celebrated Black

contralto A contralto () is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range is the lowest female voice type. The contralto's vocal range is fairly rare; similar to the mezzo-soprano, and almost identical to that of a countertenor, typically b ...

Marian Anderson Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897April 8, 1993) was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to Spiritual (music), spirituals. Anderson performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues throu ...

, not long after her famous 1939 concert on the steps of the

Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial is a U.S. national memorial built to honor the 16th president of the United States, Abraham Lincoln. It is on the western end of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., across from the Washington Monument, and is in the ...

, and dedicated a painting to

Paul Robeson Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...

. Pippin left ''The Park Bench'' unfinished in his studio at this death in 1946.

Romare Bearden Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City a ...

later said: "the man, I think, symbolizes Pippin himself, who, having completed his journey and his mission, sits wistfully, in the autumn of the year, all alone on a park bench."

Collections and retrospective exhibitions

Pippin painted about 140 works, many in museum collections, including the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York, NY;

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...

, Washington, D.C.;

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, Philadelphia, PA; The

, Philadelphia, PA
the Brandywine River Museum
Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania; the

, Washington, D.C.;

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

, Baltimore, MD; and

, San Francisco, CA. Pippin was the first African American artist to be the subject of a monograph, Selden Rodman's ''Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America'' of 1947. He has since been the subject of three major retrospective exhibitions, several scholarly books and articles, a book of poetry, and several children's books. * ''Horace Pippin.''

, Washington, D.C., February 25–March 1977;

Terry Dintenfass Terry Dintenfass (April 4, 1920 – October 26, 2004) was an American art dealer. Career Terry Dintenfass established her first gallery, the D Contemporary, in 1954

Gallery, New York, April 5–30, 1977; and

Brandywine River Museum of Art The Brandywine Museum of Art is a museum of regional and American art located on U.S. Route 1 in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania on the banks of the Brandywine Creek. The museum showcases the work of Andrew Wyeth, a major American realist painter, and ...

, Chadds Ford, Pa., June 4–September 5, 1977. * ''I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin.'' Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, January 21–April 17, 1994; Art Institute of Chicago, April 30–July 10, 1994; Cincinnati Art Museum, July 28–October 9, 1994; Baltimore Museum of Art, October 26, 1994 – January 1, 1995; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 1–April 30, 1995. * ''Horace Pippin: The Way I See It''.

, Chadds Ford, Pa., April 25–July 19, 2015

Notes

Sources

* Barnes, Albert. "Horace Pippin." In ''Horace Pippin Exhibition'', exh. cat., Carlen Gallery. Philadelphia, 1940. *Bearden, Romare. "Horace Pippin." In ''Horace Pippin'', exh. cat., The Phillips Collection. Washington, D.C., 1976. *Bernier, Celeste-Marie. ''Suffering and Sunset: World War I in the Art and Life of Horace Pippin.'' Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2015. *Conn, Steve. "The Politics of Painting: Horace Pippin the Historian", ''American Studies'' (Spring 1997): pp. 5–26 *Forgey, Benjamin, "Horace Pippin's 'personal spiritual journey'", ''ARTnews'' 76 (Summer 1977): pp. 74–75 *Lewis, Audrey M. ''Horace Pippin: The Way I See It,'' exh. cat. Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, Pa., 2015 *Locke, Alain. "Horace Pippin." In ''Horace Pippin Memorial Exhibition'', exh. cat. The Art Alliance, April 8–May 4, 1947. Philadelphia, 1947. *Monahan, Anne. ''Horace Pippin, American Modern''. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020. *Monahan, Anne.
Horace Pippin's Self-Portraits
" Yale University Press Blog, 22 February 2020. http://blog.yalebooks.com/2020/02/22/horace-pippins-self-portraits/ *"Pippin, Horace." ''Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge'', vol. 15. Grolier, 1991, *Rodman, Selden. ''Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America''. New York: Quadrangle, 1947. *Stein, Judith E. et al. ''I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin'', ex. cat. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1993. For the full text of Stein's essay, "An American Original," see her website *Zilczer, Judith. "A Not-So-Peaceable Kingdom: Horace Pippin's ''Holy Mountain,''" ''Archives of American Art Journal'', 41 (Jan 2001): 18–33, https://doi.org/10.1086/aaa.41.1_4.1557755

External links

Horace Pippin Notebook and Letters Online at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pippin, Horace 20th-century American painters American male painters Naïve painters 1888 births 1946 deaths American people with disabilities People from West Chester, Pennsylvania People from Goshen, New York Social realist artists Self-taught artists 20th-century African-American painters 20th-century American male artists

Early life

World War I

Career

Artworks

Collections and retrospective exhibitions

Notes

Sources

Further reading

External links