Horace Pippin (1888-1946) was one of America's principal African American artists and among the foremost primitive painters of the 20th century.

Horace Pippin was born in West Chester, Pa. According to his own account, he began to make pictures at the age of 7. In 1895 he went with his mother to Goshen, N.Y., where he attended school. At 14 he was employed doing odd jobs on a farm; a year later he began unloading coal for a living. In 1912 he took a job in a storage warehouse. He enlisted in the Army in 1917 and was sent to France, where he was badly wounded. He was honorably discharged from the infantry in 1919 and married the following year.

In the 1920s Pippin revived his interest in art. In 1930 he painted his first oil, End of the War: Starting Home, a World War I scene. Christian Brinton discovered Pippin's work in 1937 and...