I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin

One of the foremost African-American artists of the twentieth century, Horace Pippin came to prominence in the late 1930s between the heyday of the American Scene painters and the ascendancy of Abstract Expressionism. An unschooled painter who was a disabled World War I veteran, Pippin is represented in public and private collections across America.
I Tell My Heart features over 110 Pippin paintings including many never before reproduced nor shown in public since the artist's lifetime, as well as many black and white archival photographs of Pippin and his contemporaries.
Pippin provides a first-hand view of several little-celebrated aspects of African-American culture: documentation of the bravery of black soldiers in combat; the dignity, beauty, and hardships of everyday life among rural people circa 1900; and the strength and warmth of intergenerational familial relationships.
The book is divided into five thematic areas - war, genre, academic, biblical, and historical subjects - giving readers the opportunity to discover the breadth of Pippin's visual imagination. A chronology of his life, an exhibition history, a list of all known works, along with a selected bibliography provide the most complete and thorough information about Horace Pippin that has ever been collected.
A diverse group of distinguished scholars have freshly considered all aspects of Pippin's life and work. Judith E. Stein constructs a fuller picture of Pippin as an artist and as a man by using his letters and by culling his quoted remarks from period publications. Cornel West explores Pippin's significance vis a vis American and African-American cultural history. Authors Lynda Roscoe Hartigan, Richard J. Powell, and Judith Wilson shed new light on Pippin's iconography - from his images of war to his biblical inspirations. And conservators Mark F. Bockrath and Barbara A. Buckley discuss Pippin's process and technique, a subject never addressed before.
I Tell My Heart restores Horace Pippin to his full status as an exemplar of the American spirit. As an early-recognized and nationally celebrated African-American artist, Pippin is an example and an inspiration to all.