ROBERT SAVON PIOUS (1908 - 1983) Joe Louis vs. Clarence "Red" Burman
Oil on illustration board, circa 1941. 425x508 mm; 16 3/4x20 inches. Signed in oil, lower right.
Provenance: from the artist to his brother, New Orleans; thence by descent to the current owner.
This impressive work is the first known painting by Robert Savon Pious to come to auction. Pious shows the dramatic finish of this storied boxing match--Joe Louis putting Clarence "Red" Burman on the ropes just before the referee stops the fight. Moments later, Burman was draped over the lowest rope after Louis battered him with a barrage of punches in this fifth and final round of their January 31, 1941 match at Madison Square Garden. Louis defended his heavyweight title an unprecedented 13 times in the 29 months from January 1939 through May 1941.
Robert Savon Pious, whose portraiture and sporting scenes were well known in the 1930s and '40s, is underappreciated today as a figurative artist. 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 commerical artist, he specialized in portrait painting, winning the Harmon Foundation's 1929 Springarn prize for a portrait of the concert singer Roland Hayes. The prize led to a four-year scholarship at the National Academy of Design in New York from 1931 to 1935. He exhibited in Harmon Foundation exhibitions throughout the early 1930s, and worked with Earl Sweeting to create works depicting African history for the Charles C. Seifert Library in Harlem. His work 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 also 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; 249-50.
