ROBERT PIOUS (1908 - 1983) Famous Pirates of the New World.
Oil on canvas, mounted to cardboard, circa 1958. 445x368 mm; 17 1/2x14 1/2 inches. Signed in oil, lower right.
Provenance: private collection.
According to the typed label on the verso, Random House, New York commissioned this painting for the non-fiction book by A.B.C. Whipple. First published in 1958, it was the front cover illustration.
Born in Meridian, MS, Pious studied at the Art Insitute of Chicago in 1921. He moved to New York in the late 1920s. When he was not working as a commericial artist, he specialized in portrait painting, winning the Harmon Foundation's 1929 Springarn prize and a four-year scholarship to the National Academy of Design in New York from 1931 to 1935. He exhibited in Harmon Foundation exhibitions throughout the early 1930s, and was included in the important Exhibition of Fine Art Productions by American Negroes at the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition. He is also well known for his award-winning poster design for the 1940 American Negro Exposition, where he exhibited. During WWII, like Charles Alston, Pious worked as an illustrator for the U.S. Office of War Information, as well as a cartoonist and book illustrator. He became a "leading illustrator, especially of African-American athletes." Bearden/Henderson pp. 234-35 and 249-50.
