Modern Day Auction

Horace Pippin

Portrait of Major-General Smedley D. Butler, U.S.M.C, Retired

Auction Closed

May 18, 09:51 PM GMT

Estimate

400,000 - 600,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Horace Pippin

1888 - 1946

Portrait of Major-General Smedley D. Butler, U.S.M.C, Retired

signed H. Pippin (lower right)

oil on canvas

19¼ by 25⅛ in.

48.3 by 63.5 cm.

Executed in 1937.

American Legion Post 134, West Chester, Pennsylvania (gifted directly from the artist)
Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1965)
Acquired by descent from the above by the present owner

George H. Straley, "General Butler Pleased with Portrait, Especially Way Artist Painted Nose," Daily Local News, 1938
William J. Johnston, "West Chester Post 162," Pippin clippings scrapbook, Robert Carlen Papers, Archives of American Art, 1940
Selden Rodman, Horace Pippin: A Negro Painter in America, New York, 1947, no. 20, p. 13, pl X illustrated (as Major General Smedley D. Butler, 1937)
Sarah J. Wilson, Horace Pippin: A Chester County Artist, West Chester, 1988, vol. 8
Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson, A History of African American Artists from 1792 to the Present, New York, 1993, p. 363
Audrey Lewis, Horace Pippin: The Way I See It, Chadds Ford, 2015, pl. 20, illustrated
Celeste Marie Bernier, Suffering and Sunset: World War I in the Art and Life of Horace Pippin, Philadelphia, 2015, p. 125
Anne Monahan, Isabelle Duvernois and Silvia A. Centeno, "'Working My Thought More Perfectly': Horace Pippin's 'The Lady of the Lake'," The Metropolitan Museum Journal 52, 2017, pp. 104, 107, n2
Katherine Jentleson, Gatecrashers: The Rise of the Self-Taught Artist in America, Oakland, 2020, p. 83
Anne Monahan, Horace Pippin: American Modern, New Haven, 2020, no. 57, pp. 6, 37, 50-51, 67, 118, 120-21, 157, 164-65, 174 and 197, illustrated

West Chester, Chester County Art Center, Seventh Annual Exhibition, 1938 (titled General Butler)

Philadelphia, Carlen Galleries, Horace Pippin Exhibition, 1940

New York, Bignou Gallery, Paintings by Horace Pippin, 1940, no. 5 (titled Portrait of Major-General Smedley D. Butler)

Arts Club of Chicago, Exhibition of Paintings by Horace Pippin, 1941, no. 14 (titled Major-General Smedley D. Butler, U.S.M.C.)

Wilmington, Delaware Art Museum, Four Delaware Valley Primitives, February - March 1974, no. 52, illustrated (titled Major General Smedley D. Butler, U.S.M.C.)

Washington, D.C., The Phillips Collection and Chadds Ford, Brandywine River Museum, Horace Pippin Exhibition, 1977, no. 5, illustrated

West Chester, Pennsylvania, Chester County Historical Society, Horace Pippin: A Chester County Artist, January - June 1988, no. 8, illustrated

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Art Institute of Chicago; Cincinnati Art Museum; Baltimore Museum of Art and New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, I Tell My Heart: The Art of Horace Pippin, January 1994 - April 1995, no. 22, pp. 96, 102, 104, 167, 179, 187 and 196, illustrated