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. == References ==