American artist's short pipe (7)
I believe the answer is:
whistle
'pipe' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'american artist's short' is the wordplay.
'american artist' becomes 'whistler' (painter James McNeill Whistler).
'short' means to remove the last letter.
'whistler' with its last letter taken off is 'WHISTLE'.
(Other definitions for whistle that I've seen before include "For something, ask in vain" , "Call vainly for" , "Warning sound" , "Make nonchalant noise" , "He wilts (anag.)" .)