Old Black Joe

More than a trace of irony lies below the surface in Horace Pippin’s picture of plantation life. An elderly slave, too old for fieldwork, lives out his last years tending a child whose mother watches from a doorway. The tether that connects him to the child reminds us that “Old Black Joe” was earlier tied to a life picking cotton in the fields behind him.

The Capehart Division of Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation asked Pippin to paint Old Black Joe for the company collection and later used it in an advertising campaign about the power of music. The title comes from Stephen Foster’s sentimental ballad of 1860, “Old Black Joe,” and the painting evokes the sense of loss that haunts the ballad’s lyrics:

Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling “Old Black Joe.”