Roses With Red Chair 1940

Horace Pippin’s ‘Roses with Red Chair’ is a painting made with simple materials, yet it unfolds like a little drama. Look at the texture, almost built up like the impasto on a cake. I imagine Pippin layering each brushstroke with care, building up the forms of the roses. I bet he was thinking about form and flatness. And what about that red chair? It’s like a character in a play, waiting for someone to sit down, or maybe it’s a stand-in for the artist himself. It's like he's referencing Van Gogh’s chair—that painting haunts every artist. There is so much to read into in his choice of colors. This everyday scene is transformed into something poetic and profound, as if painting itself is about making something from nothing, just like life.