Potted Plant in Window

A twentieth-century American artist renowned for his bold, engaging compositions, Horace Pippin was born in nearby West Chester, Pennsylvania. He served overseas in World War I as part of the African American regiment that came to be known as the Harlem Hellfighters. He was severely wounded by a sniper in France, leaving his right arm impaired. Despite this, Pippin taught himself how to paint in the late 1920s using his left hand as a support. He was quickly embraced nationally by museums, galleries, critics, and collectors that recognized— in his flat simplified shapes and intense blocks of color as in Potted Plant in Window —a singular new vision of modernism.