NGA Classroom: Counting on Art: Bios / Resources: Meet Horace Pippin (1888

Bios / Resources: Meet Horace Pippin (1888–1946)

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Pippin's Early Days

Horace Pippin was an African American painter. He was born around 1888—just twenty-three years after the Civil War and the end of slavery. His grandparents were slaves, and his parents were domestic workers.

Pippin liked to draw and would illustrate his spelling words in school. But his family could not afford art materials. At age ten, he won a box of crayons in a magazine drawing contest and started coloring. He left school at age fourteen to help his family. He worked on a farm, as a porter at a hotel, and as an iron molder in a factory.

Photograph of Pippin and his wife

In 1917 Pippin went to France to fight in World War I. His right arm was badly injured in the war. He returned home, married, and settled in Pennsylvania. Because of his injury, he worked odd jobs and barely made a living.

Pippin as Painter

At the age of forty Pippin found a way—even with his crippled right hand—to draw on wood using a hot poker. He made many burnt-wood art panels. Pippin 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.

Horace Pippin, Domino Players, 1943		Horace Pippin, Abe Lincoln, The Great Emancipator, 1942		Horace Pippin, The End of the War: Starting Home, 1930-33		Horace Pippin, Harmonizing, 1944
[click on the above images to enlarge]

Pippin went on to paint his memories of soldiers and war, and scenes from his childhood. He said, "The pictures . . . come to me in my mind and if to me it is a worthwhile picture I paint it . . .. I do over the picture several times in my mind and when I am ready to paint it I have all the details I need."

He also painted historical subjects, such as Abraham Lincoln and John Brown, and scenes from the Bible. At first, he made only about four paintings per year.

Horace Pippin, Interior, 1944

Famous Folk Artist

Pippin was called a folk artist because he had no formal art training. He used bright colors, flat shapes, and straight lines. He did not use shading or complicated perspective. His art is also called primitive, naive, or innocent.

In 1938, when he was around 50, the Museum of Modern Art included four of Pippin's paintings in a traveling museum show. He took art classes for the first time. Pippin became more and more well-known. Galleries showed his paintings, and museums began to buy his work. He made 75 paintings during the last years of his life. Just as he became famous, Pippin died.

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