Portrait of Joseph Pickett, by Lloyd Ney, 1961, photograph by Jack Rosen, courtesy James A. Michener Art Museum

[Joseph Pickett's] work forms an arc between the painting of the nineteenth century and modern times.

Joseph Pickett was a New Hope shopkeeper who earned posthumous fame as one of America's great naive artists. A wild and restless young man, Pickett followed the carnival and opened a shooting gallery at Neshaminy Falls. During those years, he used his talent as an artist to paint for the carnival for his shooting gallery. In middle age he married and settled down, opening a general store where he painted in the back room when business was slow. Typically, he painted New Hope village scenes and historic events, emblazoned in bright colors and vivid detail. Untrained in perspective, Pickett suggested distance by arranging objects on tiers. Although neighbors recalled that Pickett painted a great deal, only five of his canvases have been recovered. He first gained serious attention as an artists from the modernists, who organized a show in his memory in 1930. They celebrated Pickett as a nonacademic painter, and, as such, a symbol for their own rebellion against the conservatism of the art community at Phillips Mill.