Lot 122: Horace Pippin (1888-1946)

Horace Pippin (1888-1946)
Fishing in the Brandywine: Early Fall
signed 'H. Pippin' (lower right)
oil on canvas
25 x 35 in. (63.5 x 88.9 cm.)
Painted in 1932.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin, February 1-April 30, 1995.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, 1995-2008, on loan.

S. Rodman, Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America, New York, 1947, p. 82, no. 6.
J.E. Stein, I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1993, pp. 17, 83, 136, 138, 194, no. 133, illustrated.

Carlen Galleries, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by 1947.
Private collection.
Mrs. Michael I. Sovern, by descent.
Private collection, by descent.
Estate of the above.

While Horace Pippin demonstrated a proclivity for drawing from a young age, the entirely self taught artist claimed that it was World War I that "brought out all the art in me." (quoted in J.E. Stein, "An American Original," in I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1993, p. 3) While he kept an illustrated diary during the war, it was not until Pippin returned to his birth town of West Chester, Pennsylvania that he began to focus on art in earnest. The initial progression was slow as he began decorating cigar boxes with charcoal, which evolved into burning images on wood panel, and finally to painting. He compled his first oil, The End of the War: Starting Home, in 1930 at the age of 42. Throughout his career he completed over 100 paintings and his artistic accomplishments are even more impressive in light of an injury that he sustained in the war, which permanently hindered his use of his right arm.

While many of his early works depict war scenes, Pippin soon expanded his scope to include a variety of subjects including interiors, exteriors and biblically inspired works. Painted in 1932, Fishing in the Brandywine: Early Fall, is one of a subset of the second category depicting hunting and fishing scenes. Pippin loved the outdoors and as he chose to use his immediate surroundings for many of his genre scenes, the present work depicts two men knee deep in the rushing water of a local river. Lynda Roscoes Hartigan comments on this body of work, "The outdoor settings of Pippin's earliest genre scenes introduce his love of the landscape, particularly rural Pennsylvania from the Brandywine River Valley to the Pocono Mountains. Seasonal and atmospheric effects figure prominently in his two dozen landscapes on fabric and panel." ("Horace Pippin's American Universe," Antiques Magazine, January 1994, p. 179) In the present work, the ground is covered with fallen leaves indicating that it is fall as Pippin employs a palette of various browns, whites, black and gray tones to further imbue the work with an autumnal impression.

There is a balance and symmetry inherent to Fishing in the Brandywine: Early Fall, which manifests Pippin's natural instinct for pattern and composition. The two similarly outfitted men, one of whom is reeling in a fish, occupy the foreground while their spotted dog, located at the center of the composition, waits on the river bank. Pippin's choice to position the dog between the men adds balance to the composition. The artist clearly delineates foreground, middle ground and background into three horizontal bands: the water, the river bank and the woods. The verticality of the men and trees is juxtaposed with this banding adding unity and cohesion to the work. Pattern increases as space recedes, the artfully rendered fallen leaves on the near river bank yielding to the overall design of the partially bare branches and trunks of the woods beyond and the more abstract rendering of the far bank. The bend of the river and effect of light filtering through the trees are executed in a sophisticated manner that is testament to Pippin's innate talent and vision.

Pippin worked in near obscurity until 1937 when his work came to the attention of artist N.C. Wyeth and critic Christian Brinton and was exhibited at the sixth annual exhibition of the Chester County Art Association. He gained immediate acclaim in larger artistic circles and the following year, four of the artist's works were included in an exhibition organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York. At the time of his death in 1946 his work had been widely exhibited and Albert Barnes was among his patrons. Shortly after Pippin's death, Alain Locke wrote of the artist's career, "He had painted so long for his own satisfaction that he was completely without fear or regard for his rapidly increasing public. There resulted a real and rare genius, combining folk quality with artistic maturity so uniquely as almost to defy classification. For Pippin became a blend of the folk-artist and the sophisticated stylist, the 'primitive' and the technical experimenter, the genre-painter and the abstractionist" (Horace Pippin Memorial Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1947, n.p.)