Horace Pippin
The Buffalo Hunt
1933
On view
Floor 7
Date
1933
Classification
Paintings
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Overall: 21 5/16 × 31 5/16in. (54.1 × 79.5 cm)
Accession number
41.27
Credit line
Purchase
Rights and reproductions
© artist or artist’s estate
Audio
-
Horace Pippin, The Buffalo Hunt, 1933
Horace Pippin, The Buffalo Hunt, 1933
0:00
Narrator: At first glance, this winter landscape may appear almost empty: a tree, snow drifts, and a gloomy gray sky. But the painting’s title, Buffalo Hunt invites you to look more carefully. In the lower right, you can make out the shaggy outline of a roughly painted buffalo or two. Forms in the lower left seem like they could be hunting dogs. And hunched below the tree, there’s a silhouette of a crouching man carrying a rifle. Horace Pippin’s loose, almost abstract approach to the scene makes it seem like a dream, a memory, or a symbol of something larger. He leaves the painting open to interpretation—inviting us to think for ourselves about what the scene might mean.
