Robert Savon Pious
Harlem Renaissance Man
Robert Savon Pious was born on March 7, 1908, in Meridian, Mississippi. His father, Nattie, and his mother, Loula, were children of emancipated slaves. By 1921, Pious’ father had passed. His mother remarried. And Chicago, through St. Louis, was home.
After graduating from high school, Pious continued his studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Meanwhile, he found employment working the nightshift in the press room at Cuneo Press—one of Chicago’s largest printing companies.
Pious’ experience at Cuneo stoked an interest in illustration. After just two years, he left SAIC to pursue his dream of becoming an illustrator.
In 1931, the National Academy of Design in New York City gave Pious a four-year scholarship. He accepted, and moved to Harlem. Pious quickly befriended Augusta Savage, Ernest Crichlow, Charles Alston, Romare Bearden, and other Black artists, musicians, writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
As a way of supplementing his income from illustration, Pious painted portraits of public figures in the Black community. His 1951 portrait, done in oil on canvas, of Harriet Tubman is now housed in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.
For four decades, Pious’ varied work (Multiple styles?! Oh no! Weren’t art directors confused?) was seen in newspapers, magazines, pulp comics, and books.
He earned several awards and honors, including first prize in a national poster contest for Chicago’s American Negro Exposition. None other than Fiorello La Guardia, the mayor of New York City (after whom LaGuardia Airport is named), handed Pious the $100 prize ($2,200 today).
Side note: Does Fiorello La Guardia sound familiar? He was the ghost that visited Lenny Clotch, the mayor of New York City, in the original Ghostbusters.
Starting in 1933 Pious produced a comic strip called “The Dopes” (or, “The Dupes”). Depicting a middle-class Black family, the strip was syndicated in newspapers that served the Black community, including The Pittsburgh Courier and The Atlanta Daily World.
Through the 1940s and 50s, Pious created cartoons for the United States Office of War Information; he taught art at the YMCA in Harlem; he painted murals in countless New York City-based clinics, libraries, and schools; and he illustrated children’s books for Random House, Whitman Publishing, Grosset & Dunlap (for which I was an art director from 2011 to 2017), and other publishers.
On February 1, 1983, Pious passed in his home in The Bronx. Not enough has been written by Pious’ remarkable life and work. Hopefully that changes.
—Giuseppe
(Sources: holmesartgallery.com, aaregistry.org, pulpartists.com)