Monday Morning Museum: Horace Pippin

Self-Portrait, 1944 by Horace Pippin

Horace Pippin – Wednesday 22 February 1888 West Chester, Pennsylvania to Saturday 6 July 1946
American Folk Artist

Lady of the Lake, 1936

“"Lady of the Lake" is distinctive in Pippin's work, not only for its landscape setting, but also for its literary subject matter, taken from the Arthurian legends. In Pippin's own inimitable interpretation, the Lady of the Lake is here personified as a nude sunbather at the edge of the water, stretched out on a blanket decorated with what seems to be a Native American design. The figure sits with her face held up to the sun, next to a cabin that seems too small to accommodate her height—an exaggeration of scale and perspective that marks the work of many self-taught artists. On the near shore of the lake rests a canoe. Meadow and forest fill the opposite shore, and mountains rise in the distance. The symmetry is broken only by the trellis with a single, prominent red rose at the lower right of the composition. The artist's use of bright, intense reds and greens is typical of his palette during his period.” – Metropolitan Museum of Art

Last Monday’s Artist – Eugène Cuvelier
Next Monday’s Artist – Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
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