Suffering and Sunset

Celeste-Marie Bernier is Professor of African American Studies at the University of Nottingham, England. She is the author of Characters of Blood: Black Heroism in the Transatlantic Imagination and African American Visual Arts: From Slavery to the Present.

"Celeste-Marie Bernier has written a sweeping account of the art, life, and time of Horace Pippin, one that brings unprecedented color to and a clear understanding of an under-represented American artist. The voluminous research in Suffering and Sunset takes the reader beyond the realm of art to establish a broad historical base that includes issues of race and identity in American culture. The book gives an unbiased biographical account of the artist’s everyday activities, much of which is drawn from Pippin’s war diary and his day-to-day transactions with his art dealer. Salient among Bernier’s observations about Pippin’s art and his long journey as a World War I soldier in Europe are the extraordinary experiences he endured in the pursuit of his artistry, some of which were purely racist in nature. Relying heavily on Pippin’s own personal account of his life as an artist, Bernier paints an indelible word picture of the pain, struggle, and triumph of one of the most important American artists of the twentieth century." -David C. Driskell, Distinguished University Professor of Art, Emeritus, University of Maryland, College Park “Bernier painstakingly examines Pippin’s manuscripts, paintings, and sketches to show how his meager written legacy casts revealing light on his other works…. The author analyzes Pippin’s work in exhaustive…detail, comparing the scant information of his wartime experience with the stark monotones in his paintings…. [The] in-depth analyses [are] filled with learned conjecture.” -Kirkus Reviews