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Jean-Michel Basquiat Biography

Jean-Michel Basquiat Biography

Alina    2018-07-04 14:05:00    painters biographies   

Painter, Artist (1960–1988)

Jean-Michel Basquiat was a Neo-Expressionist painter in the 1980s. He is best known for his primitive style and his collaboration with pop artist Andy Warhol.

Who Was Jean-Michel Basquiat?

Jean-Michel Basquiat was born on December 22, 1960, in Brooklyn, New York. He first attracted attention for his graffiti under the name "SAMO" in New York City. He sold sweatshirts and postcards featuring his artwork on the streets before his painting career took off. He collaborated with Andy Warhol in the mid-1980s, which resulted in a show of their work. Basquiat died on August 12, 1988, in New York City.

Death

Basquiat died of a drug overdose on August 12, 1988, in New York City. He was 27 years old. 

How Much Is a Basquiat Painting Worth?

During his lifetime, an art loving public that had no problem paying as much as $50,000 for a Basquiat original. However, in 2017 a Japanese billionaire broke a record when he bought Basquiat's “Untitled,” a 1982 painting of a skull, for $110.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction. 

Basquiat's Crown Motif

In his earlier works, Basquiat was known for using a crown motif, which was his way of celebrating black people as majestic royalty or deeming them as saints.

Describing the crown itself in further detail, artist Francesco Clemente posited: "Jean-Michel’s crown has three peaks, for his three royal lineages: the poet, the musician, the great boxing champion. Jean measured his skill against all he deemed strong, without prejudice as to their taste or age." 

Basquiat Movie

Directed by Basquiat's fellow colleague Julian Schnabel, the biographical indie film entitled Basquiat was released in 1996, which starred Jeffrey Wright in the title role and David Bowie as Warhol, among its star-studded cast.

Paintings

Three years of struggle gave way to fame in 1980, when Basquiat's work was featured in a group show. His work and style received critical acclaim for the fusion of words, symbols, stick figures, and animals. Soon, his paintings came to be adored by an art loving public that had no problem paying as much as $50,000 for a Basquiat original.

His rise coincided with the emergence of a new art movement, Neo-Expressionism, ushering in a wave of new, young and experimental artists that included Julian Schnabel and Susan Rothenberg.

Basquiat and Warhol

In the mid 1980s, Basquiat collaborated with famed pop artist Andy Warhol, which resulted in a show of their work that featured a series of corporate logos and cartoon characters.

On his own, Basquiat continued to exhibit around the country and the world. In 1986, he traveled to Africa for a show in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. That same year, the 25-year-old exhibited nearly 60 paintings at the Kestner-Gesellschaft Gallery in Hanover, Germany — becoming the youngest artist to ever showcase his work there.

Early Years

Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat was born in Brooklyn, New York, on December 22, 1960. With a Haitian-American father and a Puerto Rican mother, Basquiat's diverse cultural heritage was one of his many sources of inspiration.

A self-taught artist, Basquiat began drawing at an early age on sheets of paper his father, an accountant, brought home from the office. As he delved deeper into his creative side, his mother strongly encouraged him to pursue his artistic talents.

Basquiat first attracted attention for his graffiti in New York City in the late 1970s, under the name "SAMO." Working with a close friend, he tagged subway trains and Manhattan buildings with cryptic aphorisms.

In 1977 Basquiat quit high school a year before he was slated to graduate. To make ends meet, he sold sweatshirts and postcards featuring his artwork on the streets of his native New York.

Personal Problems

As his popularity soared, so did Basquiat's personal problems. By the mid-1980s, friends became increasingly concerned by his excessive drug use. He became paranoid and isolated himself from the world around him for long stretches. Desperate to kick a heroin addiction, he left New York for Hawaii in 1988, returning a few months later and claiming to be sober.

Sadly, he wasn't. Basquiat died of a drug overdose on August 12, 1988, in New York City. He was 27 years old. Although his art career was brief, Jean-Michel Basquiat has been credited with bringing the African-American and Latino experience into the elite art world.

After his death, the artist was back in the spotlight in May 2017 when a Japanese billionaire bought “Untitled,” a 1982 painting of a skull, for $110.5 million at a Sotheby’s auction. The sale set a record for the highest price for a work by an American artist and for an artwork created after 1980. It was also the highest price for a painting by Basquiat and by a black artist. 

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William Hogarth Biography

William Hogarth Biography

Alina    2018-07-03 14:05:00    painters biographies   

Writer, Painter (1697–1764)

Best known for his moral and satirical engravings and paintings, William Hogarth was the first great English-born artist to attract admiration abroad.

Synopsis

Born in England on November 10, 1697, William Hogarth began at a private drawing school, where he joined other students drawing from casts and live models. His first dated painting is The Beggar's Opera (1728), which emphasizes Hogarth's prevailing interests: Hhs involvement with the theater and with down-to-earth, comic subjects. Though never neglected, Hogarth is chiefly remembered for his satiric engraving more than his painting. He died on October 26, 1764.

Early Years

William Hogarth was born on November 10, 1697, in Smithfield, England, the fifth child in his family. His father, Richard Hogarth, made an ill-advised move into the business world with a Latin-speaking coffeehouse, the failure of which bankrupted the family and sent the elder Hogarth to debtor's prison. Left virtually on his own, William Hogarth found an apprenticeship in a silver workshop, where he became a master of engraving and opened his own plate-engraving shop seven years after he started (1720).

The Artist

Through his shop, Hogarth became acquainted with Sir James Thornhill, whose art academy soon hosted Hogarth regularly and would be the setting for the only formal instruction Hogarth would ever receive. (Hogarth also married Thornhill's daughter, Jane, in 1729.) While at Thornhill's academy, Hogarth created a series of illustrations of Samuel Butler's Hudibras and thereafter continued making engravings of scenes from theatrical shows, often with a satirical flair.

Hogarth soon began establishing his reputation with works such as The South Sea Scheme (1721) and The Lottery (1721). A decade later, he had become hugely successful on the back of works such as A Harlot's Progress (1732) and the morality series A Rake's Progress (1734).

Later Years and Death

With Hogarth's growing success came a growing interest in using his art to make social and political statements, often targeting the urbanization of London and the ensuing prevalent crime. Works created in this atmosphere include Industry and Idleness (1747), Gin Lane (1751) and The Four Stages of Cruelty (1751), which respectively addressed embracing the Protestant work ethic, alcoholism and cruelty to animals.

By 1762, Hogarth had turned to anti-war satire, notably with The Times, which raised the ire of national politicians (and prompted back-and-forth rebuttals). Unfortunately, The Times would be the beginning of the end of Hogarth's creative period, as the following summer, he had a seizure and became seriously ill. Hogarth died in London on October 26, 1764, at the age of 67.

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Jeff Koons Biography

Jeff Koons Biography

Alina    2018-07-02 14:05:00    painters biographies   

Sculptor, Illustrator, Painter (1955–)

Jeff Koons is a famous contemporary artist whose work is influenced by an eclectic array of sensibilities.

Synopsis

Born in York, Pennsylvania, on January 21, 1955, artist Jeff Koons made a name for himself by using everyday objects in special installations that touched on consumerism and the human experience. Some of his art has consisted of overtly sexual themes while others have been seen as a form of neo-kitsch, such as his balloon dogs. In 1988, he debuted a famous sculpture of Michael Jackson.

Education

Jeff Koons was born on January 21, 1955, in York, Pennsylvania. After high school, he headed south to Maryland, where he attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. While earning his M.F.A. there (1976), he attended a show at the Whitney Museum in New York, an exhibition that would change his life.

“I remember being an art student and going to the Whitney in 1974 to see the exhibition of Jim Nutt, the Chicago imagist,” Koons says. “It was then I transferred to school in Chicago, all because of that show.” So Koons enrolled at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an institution that would grant him an honorary doctorate more than 30 years later (2008).

The Art

Koons’ first show was staged in 1980, and he emerged onto the art scene with a style that blended several existing styles—pop, conceptual, craft, appropriation—to create his own unique mode of expression.

An “idea man,” Koons now runs his studio as he would a production office, often using computer-aided design and hiring out the actual construction of his pieces to technicians who can bring to life his ideas with more precision than he himself could.

His work takes on, in usually unconventional ways, such hot-button subjects such as sex, race, gender and fame, and it comes to life in such forms as balloons, bronzed sporting-goods items and inflatable pool toys. His knack for elevating the stature of such items from kitsch objects to high art has made his name synonymous with the art of mass culture.

And the transformation that takes place from Koons’ finding the objects he’ll use and the art he creates with them often gives birth to an unexpected psychological dimension, as shifting color, scale and representation take on new meaning, and the viewer can often find something wholly new in how humans, animals and anthropomorphized objects come to life.

Major Exhibitions and Awards

Koons' exhibits have always elicited inspired responses, a trait that perhaps itself is a marker in his importance as an artist, and since his first show in 1980 his works have been widely exhibited across the globe. In 2014, the Whitney, the museum that gave Koons a huge jolt of artistic inspiration as a student, held a retrospective of his body of work, the first to do so.

Of Koons, the Whitney says, “Throughout his career, he has pioneered new approaches to the readymade, tested the boundaries between advanced art and mass culture, challenged the limits of industrial fabrication, and transformed the relationship of artists to the cult of celebrity and the global market.”

He has also done solo shows at the château de Versailles in France (2008–09), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (2008), the Helsinki City Art Museum (2005), the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo (2004) and the Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli (2003).

Along with high-profile exhibits, Koons’ career has been notable for the wide array of prestigious awards he has received, which span the entire course of his career. Notable among them are the State Department's Medal of Arts (awarded by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2012) and becoming an honorary member of the Royal Academy, London (2010), and an officer of the French Legion of Honor (2007).

Koons was elected as a Fellow to the American Academy for Arts and Sciences in 2005.

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Alfred Sisley Biography

Alfred Sisley Biography

Alina    2018-07-01 14:05:00    painters biographies   

Painter (1839–1899)

Alfred Sisley was a French Impressionist painter, primarily of landscapes, and a friend of Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Synopsis

Alfred Sisley was born on October 30, 1839, in Paris, France. The Franco-German War financially ruined the Sisley family, but Sisely still decided to make painting his full-time career and stuggled with poverty for the rest of his life. He was an associate of Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Sisley died in Moret-sur-Loing, France, in 1899.

Early Life and Influences

The consummate landscape painter, Alfred Sisley was born to English parents on October 30, 1839, in Paris, France. In 1857, he made his first trip to London, England, where he was inspired by the work of such English landscape painters as J.M.W. Turner, John Constable and Richard Parkes Bonington. Sisley joined other Impressionist artists such as Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir in flouting the strict methods of the École des Beaux-Arts (formerly the Académie des Beaux-Arts, Paris) in favor of a more naturalistic and realistic portrayal of his subjects.

Success With Landscape Paintings

In 1868, Alfred Sisley's landscape "Avenue of Chestnut Trees near La Celle Saint-Cloud (Southampton)" was shown at the prestigious Salon art exhibition. The painting drew upon the soft tonality of Camille Corot and the dramatic massing of Gustave Courbet, both of whom were a strong influence on the artist. Sisley displayed six landscapes at the first Impressionist exhibition, and all were largely criticized. Like many of his contemporaries, he was condemned for his loose and apparently unfinished execution in such works as "Autumn: Banks of the Seine near Bougival" (1873; Montreal).

Of all of the Impressionist artists of the period, Alfred Sisley was the purest landscape painter. He painted nearly 900 oil paintings, less than a dozen of which were still lifes and only one or two of which were genre scenes. The remainder were landscapes spanning from the forests of Fontainebleau and Louveciennes, London, to Wales and Moret-sur-Loing. He eschewed cityscapes, industrialization and human figures for the serenity of a pastoral setting.

Later Years and Legacy

Under the patronage of the French baritone Jean-Baptiste Faure, Alfred Sisley was able to return to England in 1874. While there, he painted a series of canvases at Hampton Court, including "Molesey Weir, Hampton Court" (1874; Edinburgh), which has been deemed remarkably fresh and spontaneous. "Molesey Weir" appears relaxed and informal, with its portrayal of naked bathers having been executed with great economy of means.

Sisley exhibited at the second and third Impressionist exhibitions, but it wasn't until he received a mention in Georges Rivière's L'Impressioniste that the painter received any critical acclaim. Rivière wrote of Sisley's charming talent, taste, subtlety and tranquility.

Alfred Sisley portrayed a timeless view of nature in which man, although present, is never the controlling force. He died of throat cancer on January 29, 1899, in Moret-sur-Loing, France.

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Bob Ross Biography

Bob Ross Biography

Alina    2018-06-30 14:05:00    painters biographies   

Television Personality, Painter (1942–1995)

Known for his fast and easy "wet-on-wet" painting technique, Bob Ross reached millions of art lovers with his popular television program The Joy of Painting.

Synopsis

Bob Ross, born in Florida on October 29, 1942, discovered oil painting while he was enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in the early 1960s. He studied the "wet-on-wet" technique, which allowed him to produce complete paintings in less than an hour. He then became an instructor himself, eventually teaching a TV audience of millions on the PBS show The Joy of Painting.

Early Life

Bob Ross, television's famous painting instructor, was born Robert Norman Ross in Daytona, Florida, on October 29, 1942. He was raised in Orlando, Florida. After dropping out of school in the ninth grade, Ross served in the U.S. Air Force. During his service, he took his first painting lesson at an Anchorage, Alaska United Service Organizations club. From that point on, he was "hooked," a term he would use frequently during his years as a painting instructor.

TV Career

After returning from the Air Force, Ross attended various art schools until he learned the technique of "wet-on-wet" from William Alexander (later his bitter rival), where oil paints are applied directly on top of one another to produce complete paintings (mostly landscapes) in less than an hour. Ross taught wet-on-wet to several friends and colleagues, and in the early 1980s, he was given his own show on PBS based on the technique.

Ross's instructional program, The Joy of Painting, premiered in 1983 on PBS, where it would run for more than a decade and attract millions of viewers. As a TV painting instructor, Ross became known for his light humor and gentle demeanor, as well as his ability to complete a painting in 30 minutes. The Joy of Painting would eventually be carried by more than 275 stations, spawning an empire that would include videos, how-to books, art supplies and certified Bob Ross instructors.

Death and Legacy

The Joy of Painting was canceled in 1994 so that Ross could focus on his health; the famous TV instructor and host had been diagnosed with lymphoma around that same time.

Ross died from lymphoma at the age of 52, on July 4, 1995, in New Smyrna Beach, Florida. The majority of his original oil paintings were donated to charities or to PBS stations. Today, Ross remains one of the best-known and highest-paid American painters. His legacy lives on through a number of facets, including a fan-based Twitter page of more than 67,000 followers.

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Gustave Courbet Biography

Gustave Courbet Biography

Alina    2018-06-29 14:05:00    painters biographies   

Painter (1819–1877)

French painter Gustave Courbet shocked 19th century audiences with his realistic works of art that often depicted ordinary people in natural settings.

Synopsis

Gustave Courbet was born on June 10, 1819, in Ornans, France. By the 1850s, Courbet was known as a bold new artist in the Realist school, and he shocked critics and the public with his large-scale paintings showing scenes of everyday rural life. Involvement with the Paris Commune of 1871 meant that Courbet spent the last years of his life in exile in Switzerland, where he died on December 31, 1877.

Early Life and Artistic Training

Jean-Désiré-Gustave Courbet, better known as Gustave Courbet, was born on June 10, 1819, in Ornans, a small town in France’s Franche-Comté region. He was the oldest of four children of Eléonor-Régis Courbet, a prosperous farmer and landowner, and Sylvie Courbet.

At the age of 14, Courbet began taking lessons in painting with a local artist called "père" Baud. In 1837, Courbet relocated to Besançon, where he continued to learn about art. He next proceeded to Paris, a move that allowed him to make visits to the Louvre and copy works by artists such as Rembrandt, Peter Paul Rubens, Caravaggio and Francisco de Zurbarán.

In this early stage of his artistic career, Courbet painted a number of self-portraits, including “The Desperate Man” (1841) and “Self-Portrait with a Black Dog” (1842). The latter was accepted into the Salon of 1844, a prestigious, state-sponsored annual exhibition held in Paris.

A Pioneer of Realist Painting

In 1848, Courbet had a professional breakthrough when ten of his paintings were accepted into the Paris Salon. Being awarded a second-class gold medal the following year meant he was no longer required to submit his paintings to a jury in order for them to be exhibited at the Salon (this special status lasted until a rule change in 1857).

As Courbet established himself in his profession, he also courted controversy through his work. In the Parisian art world of the mid-1800s, the paintings that received the most respect and praise were large scenes of subjects from history, mythology or the Bible. Courbet worked on large canvases, but he chose to depict incidents from the everyday world of the French countryside, such as “The Stone-Breakers,” a scene of two anonymous manual laborers (1849).

Courbet’s “A Burial at Ornans” (1849-50) depicted a funeral in his rural hometown; it puzzled and upset viewers at the Salon of 1851 due to its depiction of ordinary country people on a monumental scale. As France and other European countries had recently been racked by workers’ revolts during the upheavals of 1848, Courbet’s art was also perceived as having a strong political message.

Fame and Notoriety

In 1854-55, Courbet painted a large autobiographical work entitled “The Painter’s Studio: A Real Allegory Summing Up a Seven-Year Phase of My Artistic Life.” This nearly 20-foot canvas shows Courbet working at his easel while surrounded by individuals—real and symbolic—who had influenced his life and career (the figures include Courbet's friends Charles Baudelaire and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon). When this painting was rejected by the jury of 1855's Exposition Universelle, Courbet responded by installing it in a show of his own works he held in a nearby pavilion.

Courbet also continued to provoke his audiences by pushing the boundaries of propriety in his art. “Young Women on the Banks of the Seine” (1856) shows two women in disarrayed clothing reclining informally on a riverbank—it shocked many viewers, though the painting was praised by some critics. “The Woman with a Parrot” (1866), a female nude, received a similar reaction.

During the 1860s, which were productive years for Courbet, he also painted less controversial hunting scenes, still lifes and landscapes. In general, his art was met with steady sales and continued acclaim.

Political Beliefs

Courbet was a lifelong republican whose realistic style of painting and choice of subjects from everyday life corresponded with his political beliefs. After Napoleon III’s rule collapsed in 1870, Courbet supported the republican Paris Commune. But when the Commune came to an end in 1871, he was soon arrested for being involved in the destruction of the Vendôme Column, a symbol of the Napoleonic regime.

Final Years

Courbet accepted the initial punishment meted out to him for the column's destruction: six months in prison and a small fine. In 1873, being held responsible for the costs of reinstalling the column prompted him to move to Switzerland.

While living in exile, Courbet had little money and began drinking heavily, though he managed to produce some landscapes and portraits. On December 31, 1877, Courbet died at the age of 58 in La Tour-de-Peilz, Switzerland.

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Eugène Delacroix Biography

Eugène Delacroix Biography

Alina    2018-06-28 14:05:00    painters biographies   

Painter (1798–1863)

Painter Eugène Delacroix was one of the leading artists of the French Romantic period of the 19th century.

Synopsis

Eugène Delacroix was born in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, France, on April 26, 1798. He received his artistic training in Paris and became known as a leading figure of the French Romantic era of the 19th century. Inspired by history, literature and exotic locales, Delacroix painted such famous works as "Liberty Leading the People" and "The Death of Sardanapalus." He died in Paris on August 13, 1863.

Early Years and Education

Ferdinand-Eugène-Victor Delacroix was born on April 26, 1798, in Charenton-Saint-Maurice, France. His father, Charles, was a minister of foreign affairs and served as a governmental prefect in Marseilles and Bordeaux. His mother, Victoire Oeben, was a cultured woman who encouraged young Delacroix’s love of literature and art.

Delacroix’s father died when he was 7 years old, and his mother passed away when he was 16. He attended the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris but left school to begin his artistic studies. Sponsored by a helpful and well-connected uncle, he joined the studio of the painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin. In 1816, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts. Delacroix also made many visits to the Louvre, where he admired the paintings of such Old Masters as Titian and Rubens.

Early Public Recognition

Many of Delacroix’s early paintings had religious subjects. However, the first work he exhibited at the prestigious Paris Salon, “Dante and Virgil in Hell” (1822), took its inspiration from literature.

For other works of the 1820s, Delacroix turned to recent historical events. His interest in the Greek War of Independence, and his distress at the atrocities of that war, led to “The Massacre at Chios” (1824) and “Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi” (1826).

Even at this early stage of his career, Delacroix was fortunate enough to find buyers for his work. He was hailed as a central figure in the Romantic era of French art, along with Théodore Géricault and Antoine-Jean Gros. Like these other painters, he portrayed subjects fraught with extreme emotion, dramatic conflicts and violence. Often inspired by history, literature and music, he worked with bold colors and free brushwork.

Major Works of Romanticism

Delacroix continued to impress the critics and his clients with works such as “Death of Sardanapalus” (1827), a decadent scene of a defeated Assyrian king preparing to commit suicide. One of his most famous paintings was “Liberty Leading the People,” a response to the July Revolution of 1830, in which a woman holding a French flag leads a band of fighters from all social classes. It was purchased by the French government in 1831.

After traveling to Morocco in 1832, Delacroix returned to Paris with new ideas for his art. Paintings such as “The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment” (1834) and “Moroccan Chieftain Receiving Tribute” (1837) defined his Romantic interest in exotic subjects and faraway lands. He also continued to paint scenes borrowed from the work of his favorite authors, including Lord Byron and Shakespeare, and he was commissioned to paint several rooms at the Palais Bourbon and the Palace of Versailles.

Later Life and Works

From the 1840s onward, Delacroix spent more time in the countryside outside Paris. He enjoyed friendships with other well-known cultural figures such as the composer Frédéric Chopin and the author George Sand. In addition to his literary subjects, he produced flower still lifes and multiple paintings titled “The Lion Hunt.”

Delacroix’s last major commission was a set of murals for the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris. They include “Jacob Wrestling with the Angel,” a scene of intense physical combat between two figures in a dark forest. This commission occupied Delacroix throughout the 1850s and into the following decade. He died on August 13, 1863, in Paris.

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Horace Pippin Biography

Horace Pippin Biography

Alina    2018-06-27 14:05:00    painters biographies   

Military Leader, Painter, Warrior (1888–1946)

Horace Pippin was an esteemed artist known for his renderings of the African-American experience, as well as biblical and historical imagery.

Synopsis

Born on February 22, 1888, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Horace Pippin created art as a child, though he lost the use of his drawing arm in World War I. He persevered and taught himself to paint with his injury, becoming a MOMA artist acclaimed for his renderings of African-American life along with biblical imagery and historical scenes. Published in magazines as well, Pippin died in West Chester on July 6, 1946.

Background

Horace Pippin was born on February 22, 1888, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, moving to Goshen, New York as a small child. Though facing some initial challenges from school authorities, Pippin developed a love for creating art, winning accolades and developing a reputation in his neighborhood for his craft even with limited illustrative tools.

With his mother poor in health, he left school in his early teens to earn income, working for years at a hotel and subsequently holding other jobs. Upon joining the army, he was sent overseas to France to fight in World War I as part of the African-American 369th Infantry, aka Harlem's Hell Fighters. (The entire unit eventually received France's Croix de Guerre honor.)

Loses Use of Arm

Pippin was badly hurt and lost the use of his right arm after being shot, returning to the states in 1919 and moving back to West Chester. He wed Jennie Wade in 1920, with the couple going on to have a son.

Pippin eventually used a poker to hold up his right arm, which he had used to make art, and began to draw again as a therapeutic outlet. He relied upon his left hand to guide his right to complete his first post-war work, Losing the Way (1930). Using both burnt-wood techniques and oil paints with a celebrated eye for intricate detail and social explorations, Pippin went on to complete dozens of paintings over the course of his career.

Prominent Arts Career

After his work was featured in a home county show, he became part of a traveling group exhibit with the Museum of Modern Art in 1938. Other prominent showings followed. With his work often characterized as folk art, Pippin portrayed scenes of African-American life as seen in Domino Players (1943) and Harmonizing (1944). He was noted for biblical paintings like Christ and the Woman of Samaria (1940) and his own richly textured self-portraits as well.

Pippin was also known for historical, politicized output with a series of paintings about abolitionist John Brown and President Abraham Lincoln. He was completely self-taught as an artist outside of a limited stint of classes at the Barnes Foundation and was featured in publications like Newsweek and Vogue.

Legacy and Letters

Horace Pippin died on July 6, 1946, of a stroke in the town of his birth. His wife passed very shortly thereafter. Major exhibitions of his work have been curated after his death at institutions like the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A digitized collection of Pippin's notebooks and letters, including some of his experiences as a youth and later enduring the war, are available online at the Archives of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution.

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Contact

Alina Sluchinskaya, 41100 Shostka, Sumy region, Ukraine
Website: www.alina-arts-gallery.com
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