Robert Savon Pious

Robert Savon Pious (March 7, 1908 – February 1, 1983) was an American painter and illustrator who is best known for producing cartoons, portraits, and illustrations for books, newspapers, and pulp magazines. In 1929, Pious received a prestigious Spingarn Prize for drawing from the William E. Harmon Foundation. In 1940, he won first prize in a national poster contest for the American Negro Exposition in Chicago.

Life and career Pious was born on March 7, 1908, in Meridian, Mississippi, in the United States. His parents, Nathaniel and Loula Pious, were the children of freed slaves, and his father worked on the railroad before dying in 1914. His mother remarried a year later, and the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and subsequently to Chicago. Pious graduated high school in Chicago in 1926 and began attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1927 while working nights at a printing plant. In 1928, he married college student Ruth G. Mitchell. Pious left college after two years to pursue his career as a freelance commercial illustrator. He composed editorial cartoons, advertisements, and illustrations for Continental Features, a firm that supplied African American newspapers. He supplemented his income by painting portraits of Chicago's African American elites. In 1929, Pious's pen-and-ink portrait of Roland Hayes won the prestigious Spingarn Black and White prize from the William E. Harmon Foundation.

Pious died at his home in the Bronx on February 1, 1983, at the age of 74.