Horace Pippin, a self-made creative artist, was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in the year of 1888. His early boyhood was spent in Goshen, New York, where his father was a laborer and his mother a domestic. Pippin always enjoyed drawing, particularly of objects or images he saw in his surroundings. Pippin's father died when he was fifteen, therefore, he quit school to take care of his mother who was in ill health. When she died in 1911, Pippin moved to Paterson, New Jersey, as a moving and storage company worker. He later took a job as a shoe molder for the American Brakeshoe Company. By 1917, America was engaged in the EUROPEAN WAR (World War I). Pippin volunteered for the Army unit and was assigned to the 15TH ALL BLACK INFANTRY REGIMENT, after receiving his army training at FORT DIX in New Jersey. Pippin's unit was transferred to served under the FRENCH FORCES in 1918 as part of the 369th Infantry. Corporal Pippin was a squad leader, and, during one of the heavy German artillery barrages, he was seriously wounded in his right shoulder. His entire Regiment received the French Croix de Guerre for honorable distinction for their war efforts. Pippin was hospitalized in France for five months. Rehabilitation therapy did little to restore Pippin's use of his injured shoulder, but it made him focus more on strengthening the use of his right hand.
On his return to America in 1920, Pippin moved to Westchester, New York, where he married Jennie O. Featherstone, a widow with a small son. Pippin was full of memories about his life in the military and his living as an African-American in the 1920's. He desperately wanted to develop his interest in the area of painting, but his weak shoulder only allowed certain mobility. By 1929, Pippin devised a method of using a hot iron poker for gouging out composed creations into wood panels. He then filled in the panels with colorful paints. As shown in the photograph, he held his right hand in place with the use of his left hand. By 1931, his first major work, THE END OF THE WAR: STARTING HOME, was completed. Pippin continued to work on his paintings for eight years. In 1938, Holger Cahill, curator of the New York Museum of Modern Art, was alerted to Pippin's unusual talent by Dr. Christian Brenton of the Westchester Art Center and the notable illustrator, N.C. Wyeth. Four of Pippin's works were immediately accepted by Cahill and shown at the New York Museum's 1938 exhibition called the MASTERS OF POPULAR ART.
This important acceptance lead to a call for several One Man Shows featuring his works. Several museums and foundations also wanted to acquire the works of HORACE PIPPIN. How could this be happening? Art critics called this "new find" the work of an "AUTHENTIC" American voice. Because Pippin had no specialized training, such as those African-American artists trained in the academic or European influences, he was regarded as a purest in his creations. Later curator, Judith Stein of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, called his works a "SPIRITUAL SELF-PORTRAIT." Before his death in 1946, Pippin had produced 137 known paintings, including his burnt wood panel paintings. His works encompassed: war scenes, events of people in different genre, small town typical scenes, animal scenes, and religious images. Pippin once said, "PICTURES JUST COME TO MY MIND; I THINK THEM OUT WITH MY BRAIN, AND THEN I TELL MY HEART TO GO AHEAD." Horace Pippin was offered free training by several art institutions, but his zeal to produce art creations his way shied him away from formal training.
In 1944, Horace Pippin's wife, Jennie, was committed to the state mental hospital at Norristown, Pennsylvania, and his only son entered the military for active duty during the next great war, World War II. For the next two years of his life, Horace Pippin kept busy and produced an enormous collection of paintings. It is said that they are "autobiographical," for they came from his vision of what his world was like. Horace Pippin died of a stroke on July 6, 1946. His wife died at Norristown ten days later. In 1994, The Museum of American Art of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia organized a touring exhibit entitled, I TELL MY HEART: THE ART OF HORACE PIPPIN, which toured from January 21, 1994 - April 30, 1995.
