Regular visitors to the Saint Louis Art Museum with a special interest Black art would have been pleasantly surprised to notice a familiar work had they paid a visit to WSJ.com, the website for the famed Wall Street Journal, on July 21, 2023, or at some point since then.
Horace Pippin’s 1943 painting Sunday Morning Breakfast, which hangs in Gallery 333 of the Saint Louis Art Museum, was featured as part of the outlet’s Masterpiece Series.
A recurring column that points out selected contributions across creative platforms – including film, music, visual arts and more – the Masterpiece Series makes space for critics and subject matter experts to illustrate the work’s significance within the canon of its respective medium.
‘A Tense Sunday Morning’ is the title of Judith H. Dobrzynski’s take on Pippin’s timeless classic that details a slice of Black life through his interpretation of a family gathered at the table to share a meal.
“The painting can be read in numerous ways,” said Min Jung Kim, The Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum. “What initially seems heartwarming or even nostalgic becomes more complicated after close looking. There is scarcity—a family of four shares a single plate of food—and the walls of the kitchen are falling apart. It might be Sunday, but the father figure appears to be either returning from or headed to work.”
With his meticulous detail to the most minute of nuances, the painting speaks volumes with respect to the experience of African Americans because of generations of systemic racism and oppression.
“Quietly, and with great acuity, Pippin telegraphs the family’s impoverished state,” Dobrzynski wrote in her commentary. “And, perhaps because of that, suggests tension in the domestic dynamic just beneath the surface.”
Sunday Morning Breakfast becomes even more extraordinary when one learns about its creator. He possessed an and an artistic will so strong an injury that would have diminished the creative pursuits of many painters only strengthened his resolve. For Pippin, art was a literal healing practice that became a mirror that reflected the complexities of what it meant to be Black in America during the early decades of the 20th century.
Their existence in “the land of the free and the home of the brave” was a contradictory experience to the American Dream. For them, liberties proclaimed for its citizens by the nation’s founding fathers simply did not apply.
A native of West Chester, Pennsylvania born in 1888, Pippin started painting as a therapeutic outlet after returning from the frontline of World War I. He served in the 369th Infantry Regiment. His unit was assigned to the French Army because most white American soldiers refused to perform combat duty with their Black compatriots. Pippin’s battalion was one of four Black regiments to see combat – where he was shot in the right shoulder.
Due to his injury, Pippin painted by using his left arm to brace his right arm while he clasped his brush in his right hand.
In addition to focusing on Black life, he used his paintings to detail the atrocities of his experience in the war. Some of his other notable works include, The Ending of the War, Starting Home, Study for “Barracks,” and The Park Bench – which he completed two years before his death in 1948.
The Museum acquired Sunday Morning Breakfast in 2015 for $1.5 million.
“The acquisition represented a significant investment in the collection, and the continuation of our longstanding practice to strengthen our holdings of works by African American artists,” said Min Jung Kim, The Barbara B. Taylor Director of the Saint Louis Art Museum.” Their collection also includes Edward Mitchell Bannister, Elizabeth Catlett, David Drake, Robert S. Duncanson, Norman Lewis, Kerry James Marshall, Faith Ringgold, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Kara Walker, Kehinde Wiley to name a few.
“While diversifying the collection has long been our practice, with the adoption of the Diversity Study Group Report in 2020 it became an institutional priority,” Kim said. “In redoubling our longstanding efforts, the Museum has ensured that it will continue to collect more masterpieces by a diverse range of artists.”
