HORACE PIPPIN

 

Post 187  -by Gautam Shah

SUNDAY Feature on ART of Architecture

. 

Horace Pippin (1888-1946) was a self-taught African-American artist. He was known for painting African American life. His paintings are full of rich colours and distinctive space organization. Pippin’s work is an unmediated transcription of a fully realized vision, be it imagined or observed, and one that is immune to the influence of the academic tradition. ‘My idea is that one, paints from heart and mind’ and, ‘I paint it exactly the way it is and exactly the way I see it’.

Pippin began to draw at an early age. His right arm was injured during the WW-I. He lived off his military pension, and in 1928 Pippin began producing paintings on cigar boxes. To paint, he used his left arm to support the right arm, holding the brush. Due to the injured arm, Pippin used small brush strokes. His early works have heavy impasto and restricted use of colour, but in later works he is more precise and with a bolder palette. His paintings were preconceived and rarely spontaneous. 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. Pippin said the war brought out all the art in me. Pippin painted in relative obscurity during most of the 1930s. It took him three years to finish his first painting.

 

.