Pippin, Horace (1888–1946)

US painter. A distinguished African-American folk artist, Pippin's work is characterized by simplified shapes and vivid blocks of colour. He depicted mainly African-American genre scenes from everyday life, although he sometimes expressively rendered a social issue. The Whipping (1941; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, North Carolina), for example, is a passionate comment on slavery and abuse. A self-taught artist, he distilled objects to the simplest shape and form, creating both wonderful and sometimes chilling historic moments, such as John Brown Going to His Hanging (1942).

Pippin was born and lived in West Chester, Pennsylvania. He fought in a segregated regiment during World War I, where he would often draw pictures to ease the tension of fighting on the front lines. A sniper's bullet paralyzed his right arm, and he was discharged in 1919. Unable to paint normally, he devised a method of creating pictures using his left arm and a hot poker. By the 1930s his damaged arm had become strong enough to work with oils on canvas. His work began to receive recognition, and in 1938 he exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art's exhibition ‘Masters of Popular Painting: Modern Primitives of Europe and America’. After a solo exhibition in 1940 at the Carlen Gallery in Philadelphia, Pippin's work became widely known throughout the art world.