Originally published in 1947, Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter In America was one of the first monographs ever of a Black American artist; a survey of the paintings of self-taught painter Horace Pippin (1888-1946). This reprint contains all of the original text and maintains the original formatting. It is a well-illustrated book containing a complete chronological catalog of Pippin's paintings, a chronology of his life, and the artist's autobiographical sketch, "My Life's Story," drawn from two of his manuscripts.
This book contains 6 sketches and 50 full-color plates of Pippin's work.
About Horace Pippin
Horace Pippin was born February 22, 1888, just twenty-three years after the Civil War and the end of slavery. His grandparents were slaves, and his parents were domestic workers. He was an African American folk painter known for his depictions of African American life and of the horrors of war. Horace Pippin was called a folk artist because he had no formal art training and was completely self-taught.
In 1917 Horace Pippin joined the army and fought France during World War I. After spending fourteen months fighting in the trenches, Pippin was severely wounded in his right arm, and doctors concerned his right arm to be useless. Pippin took up art 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 worthwhile picture, I paint it."
He initially made burnt-wood art panels then decided to try painting with oil. He used his "good" left hand to guide his crippled right hand, which held the paintbrush, across the canvas. It took him three years to finish his first painting.
He addressed a range of themes in his works, including landscapes, still lifes, biblical subjects and political statements. He used bright colors, flat shapes, and straight lines. He did not use shading or complicated perspective. The injustice of slavery and American segregation figure prominently in many of his works.