School Studies
1944
Painter, American, 1888 - 1946

The self-taught artist Horace Pippin turned to art after his right arm was disabled by a sniper’s bullet while serving in the African American regiment known as the “Harlem Hellfighters” during World War I. After the war, Pippin settled in his hometown of West Chester, Pennsylvania, and by the late 1930s his work had attracted the interest of such notables as the artist N. C. Wyeth, critic Christian Brinton, and collector Albert Barnes.
This painting belongs to a series of semi-autobiographical domestic interiors that Pippin painted from 1941 until his death in 1946, the best known among them being Domino Players (1943, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC). Most of these scenes represent members of African American families pursuing a variety of domestic activities in a single multipurpose room. The paintings all have the same quiet, peaceful ambience and feature many of the same common household items, such as rag rugs, quilts, a stove, and an alarm clock. What distinguishes School Studies and gives added significance to the work’s title is the way the three figures, instead of interacting, have turned their backs to each other and seem lost in their own inner worlds.
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
overall: 61.2 × 76.6 × 0.2 cm (24 1/8 × 30 3/16 × 1/16 in.)
framed: 81.28 × 97.79 × 10.16 cm (32 × 38 1/2 × 4 in.) -
Accession
1991.42.1
More About this Artwork
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
(Robert Carlen Galleries, Philadelphia); Mr. [1891-1973] and Mrs. [1893-1968] R. Sturgis Ingersoll, Esq., Philadelphia; Mr. and Mrs. Irving H. Vogel, Philadelphia; Mrs. A. Lewis Spitzer; (ACA Galleries, New York);[1] purchased 1972 by Meyer P. [1909-2001] and Vivian O. [1915-2002] Potamkin, Philadelphia; gift 1991 to the NGA.
[1] Provenance according to Horace Pippin, exh. cat. The Phillips Collection, Washington; Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York; Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Washington, 1976: no. 39.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1947
Horace Pippin Memorial Exhibition, The Art Alliance, Philadelphia, 1947, no. 36, as Interior of Cabin.
1972
Four American Primitives: Edward Hicks, John Kane, Anna Mary Robertson Moses, Horace Pippin, ACA Galleries, New York, 1972, no. 64, repro.
1977
Horace Pippin, The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York; Brandywine River Museum, Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, 1977, no. 39, repro.
1991
Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, unnumbered catalogue, color repro.
1994
I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Art Institute of Chicago; Cincinnati Art Museum; Baltimore Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1994-1995, fig. 146.
2003
All the Art in Me: In Search of Horace Pippin, Reading Public Museum, Pennsylvania, 2003, no catalogue.
2015
Horace Pippin: The Way I see It, Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chadds Ford, 2015, pl. 51.
2018
Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2018-2019, no. 59, repro., brochure fig. 4, as Interior.
Bibliography
1947
Rodman, Selden. Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America. New York, 1947: 86, no. 81.
1989
Bantel, Linda, with Susan Danly and Jeanette Toohey. "The Potamkin collection of American art." Antiques 136, vol. 2 (August 1989): 297 pl. IX, 299.
2015
Lewis, Audrey M., ed. Horace Pippin: The Way I See It. Exh. cat. Brandywine River Museum of Art, Chadds Ford. New York, 2015: 9, 77, 142, repro.
Inscriptions
lower right: H.PIPPIN,
Wikidata ID
Q20193543