vanessa germanBlack Girl on Skateboard Going Where She’s Got to Go to Do What She’s Got to Do and It Might Not Have Anything to Do With You, Ever
Art Bridges Collection
Horace PippinHoly Mountain, I
About
Growing up in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Pippin had early exposure to illustrations from the Bible and hymnals. Holy Mountain, I was inspired by the prophecy of a “Peaceable Kingdom” in the book of Isaiah, which describes a paradise where all creatures will live in harmony.
Unlike the Bible’s description, Pippin’s painting exhibits moments of secular strife. While the foreground depicts predators and prey laying together in accordance to scripture, the background reveals threatening soldiers prowling the forest next to a graveyard.
Holy Mountain, I shares the inscribed date of June 6th, 1944 with D-Day, reinforcing ideas of war and peace. This dynamic had personal significance. Pippin served in World War I, and the figure at center is likely a self-portrait.
“If a man knows nothing but hard times he will paint them,” the artist said. “For he must be true to himself, but even that man may have a dream, an ideal—and Holy Mountain is my answer to such painting.”
Artist
Horace Pippin
Dimensions
30 1/2 × 36 in. (77.5 × 91.4 cm) Framed: 37 × 43 × 6 in.
Credit Line
Art Bridges
Date
1944
Medium
Oil on canvas
Object Number
AB.2018.24
Signed
l.r., H. Pippin [dated June 6 / 1944]
Provenance
(Downtown Gallery, New York, NY); Encyclopædia Britannica Collection, Chicago, IL, by 1945; (Downtown Gallery, New York, NY); Mrs. Galen Van Meter, Southport, CT, by 1966; with (Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York, NY); (Andrew Crispo Gallery, Inc., New York, NY); (Sotheby’s, New York, NY) December 3, 1987, lot 339; purchased by Private Collection, 1987; to (Sotheby’s, New York, NY) November 16, 2018, lot 28; purchased by Art Bridges, TX, 2018
