Clementine Hunter
Encyclopedia
Clementine Hunter (late December 1886 or early January 1887 – January 1, 1988) was a self-taught African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...

 folk art
Folk art
Folk art encompasses art produced from an indigenous culture or by peasants or other laboring tradespeople. In contrast to fine art, folk art is primarily utilitarian and decorative rather than purely aesthetic....

ist from the Cane River
Cane River
Cane River is a lake and river formed from a portion of the Red River that is located in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. In the 19th and 20th centuries, it has been best known as the site of a historic Creole de couleur culture that has centers upon the National Historic Landmark Melrose...

 region in Louisiana. She was born on a plantation said to be the inspiration for Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....

worked as a farm hand, never learning to read or write. When in her fifties, she began painting, using brushes and paints left by an artist who visited Melrose Plantation
Melrose Plantation
Melrose Plantation, also known as Yucca Plantation, is a National Historic Landmark in Natchitoches Parish in north central Louisiana. This is one of the largest plantations in the United States built by and for free blacks...

, where she lived and worked. Hunter's artwork depicted plantation life in the early 20th century, documenting a bygone era. She first sold her paintings for as little as 25 cents. By the end of her life, her work was being exhibited in museums and sold by dealers for thousands of dollars. Hunter was granted an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts
Doctor of Fine Arts
Doctor of Fine Arts is doctoral degree in fine arts, typically given as an honorary degree . The degree is typically conferred to honor the recipient who has made a contribution to society in the arts...

 degree by Northwestern State University of Louisiana in 1986.

Biographical details

Hunter was the granddaughter of a slave, born just two decades after the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

. She was born either in late December 1886 or early January 1887, the eldest of seven children to Creole
Louisiana Creole people
Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...

 parents at Hidden Hill Plantation, near Cloutierville
Cloutierville, Louisiana
Cloutierville is an unincorporated community in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. It lies about south of the city of Natchitoches on exit 119 at Interstate 49...

 in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana
Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana
Natchitoches Parish is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. The parish seat is Natchitoches. As of 2000, the population was 39,080. This is the heart of the Cane River Louisiana Creole community...

. Hunter's given name
Given name
A given name, in Western contexts often referred to as a first name, is a personal name that specifies and differentiates between members of a group of individuals, especially in a family, all of whose members usually share the same family name...

 was originally Clemence, but she changed it after moving to Melrose Plantation. Her mother was Antoinette Adams (d. 1905) and her father was Janvier (John) Reuben (d. ca. 1910), a field hand. Her parents were married on October 15, 1890. Her maternal grandparents were Idole, a former slave, and Billy Zack Adams. Her paternal grandfather was "an old Irishman" and her grandmother, "a black Indian lady called 'MeMe'" .

Known as a harsh place to live and work, local legend says that Hidden Hill was the inspiration for Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....

.

At the age of 15, Hunter moved to Melrose Plantation south of Natchitoches
Natchitoches, Louisiana
Natchitoches is a city in and the parish seat of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, United States. Established in 1714 by Louis Juchereau de St. Denis as part of French Louisiana, the community was named after the Natchitoches Indian tribe. The City of Natchitoches was first incorporated on February...

. She spent much of her life picking cotton and only attended school for 10 days, never learning to read or write.

Her first two children, Joseph (Frenchie) and Cora, were fathered by Charlie Dupree, whom Hunter said she did not marry. He died around 1914 and she married Emmanuel Hunter, a woodchopper at Melrose, in 1924. The two lived and worked at Melrose Plantation for many years. Hunter worked as a field hand in her early years and as a cook and housekeeper beginning in the late 1920s. Hunter bore seven children, two stillborn. On the morning before giving birth to one of her children, she picked 78 pounds of cotton, went home and called for the midwife and was back picking cotton a few days later. Hunter lived her entire life in rural, northwest Louisiana, never going more than 100 miles from home.

Career

Hunter was self-taught. Melrose Plantation became a mecca for the arts under the guidance of its owner, Cammie Henry. Numerous artists and writers visited, including Lyle Saxon
Lyle Saxon
Lyle Saxon was a respected New Orleans writer, and journalist who reported for The Times-Picayune.-Life:He was born in Bellingham, Washington. He lived in the French Quarter; Sherwood Anderson, William Faulkner, Roark Bradford, and Edmund Wilson visited.He was an ardent student of the history of...

, Roark Bradford
Roark Bradford
Roark Whitney Wickliffe Bradford was an American short story writer and novelist.-Life:...

, Alexander Woolcott, Rose Franken
Rose Franken
Rose Dorothy Lewin Franken , author and playwright, was born on December 28, 1895, in Gainesville, Texas, the youngest child of Michael and Hannah Lewin. In 1914 she married Sigmund W.A. Franken, an oral surgeon who died in 1932. They had three children. In 1937 she married writer William Brown...

, Gwen Bristow
Gwen Bristow
Gwen Bristow was an American author and journalist.Bristow became interested in writing while reporting junior high school functions for her local newspaper. After studying at Columbia University, she wrote for a number of literary magazines and journals...

, and Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon was an American photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that "his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America's image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century."-Photography career:Avedon was born in New York City to a Jewish Russian...

. Brushes and discarded tubes of paint left by New Orleans artist Alberta Kinsey after a 1939 visit to Melrose Plantation, were used by Hunter to "mark a picture" on a window shade, beginning her career as an artist.

Hunter gained support from numerous individuals associated with Melrose Plantation, including François Mignon, plantation curator, who supplied her with paint and materials, and promoted her widely and James Register. With Mignon's help, Hunter's paintings were displayed in the local drugstore, where they were sold for one dollar. In her later years, Hunter co-authored "Melrose Plantation Cookbook" with Mignon.

On the outside of the unpainted cabin where she lived was a sign that read, "Clementine Hunter, Artist. 25 cents to Look." She produced between four and five thousand paintings in her lifetime.

Hunter's Art

Hunter has become one of the most well-known self-taught artists, often referred to as the black Grandma Moses
Grandma Moses
Anna Mary Robertson Moses , better known as "Grandma Moses", was a renowned American folk artist. She is often cited as an example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an advanced age. Although her family and friends called her either "Mother Moses" or "Grandma Moses,"...

. Painting from memory, she is credited as an important social and cultural historian for her documentation of plantation life in the early 20th century, including picking cotton, picking pecans, washing clothes, baptisms, and funerals. Many of her paintings were similar, but each one is unique. Hunter was noted for painting on anything, particularly discarded items such as window shades, jugs, bottles, and gourds and cardboard boxes. Her paintings rarely run larger than 18 by 24 inches and her work has generally been considered uneven, with her work from the 1940s to 1960 considered to be the best. She also produced a few quilts with themes depicted in her paintings.
Though she became a hugely respected artist and is today considered a folk art legend, Hunter spent her entire life in (or near) poverty. In the 1940s, she sold her paintings for as little as a quarter
Quarter (United States coin)
A quarter dollar, commonly shortened to quarter, is a coin worth ¼ of a United States dollar, or 25 cents. The quarter has been produced since 1796. The choice of 25¢ as a denomination, as opposed to 20¢ which is more common in other parts of the world, originated with the practice of dividing...

. By the 1970s, she was charging hundreds of dollars for a painting. By the time of her death, her work was being sold by dealers for thousands of dollars. She rarely titled her works, but would describe what a painting was about, when asked for a title.

One of the more well-known displays of Hunter's artwork is located in a food storage building called "African House" on the grounds of Melrose Plantation. (African House is often referred to as slave quarters, however the building was built for, and always used for food storage.) The walls are covered in a mural Hunter painted in 1955, depicting scenes of Cane River plantation life. Upon its original completion a local newspaper ran the headline: "A 20th Century Woman of Color Finishes a Story Begun 200 Years Ago by an 18th Century Congo-Born Slave Girl, Marie-Therese, the original grantee of Melrose Plantation."

An article appeared on Hunter in Look Magazine
Look magazine
Look magazine can refer to:* Look , 1937 to 1971* LOOK Magazine, for African-American college students* Look Magazine * Look Magazine...

in June 1953, giving her national exposure. A book called Clementine Hunter: Cane River Artist is due to be published in 2012, co-written by Tom Whitehead, a retired journalism professor, who knew Hunter well. A director of the Museum of American Folk Art in Washington, D.C. called Hunter "the most celebrated of all Southern contemporary painters."

Recognition

She was the first African-American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Delgado Museum (now the New Orleans Museum of Art
New Orleans Museum of Art
The New Orleans Museum of Art is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the "Canal Street - City Park" streetcar line...

) and achieved a significant amount of success during her lifetime, including an invitation to the White House from U.S. President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...

 and letters from both President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....

 and Senator J. Bennett Johnston. Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...

 included Hunter in its "Black Women Oral History Project, published in 1980. Northwestern State University of Louisiana granted her an honorary
Honorary degree
An honorary degree or a degree honoris causa is an academic degree for which a university has waived the usual requirements, such as matriculation, residence, study, and the passing of examinations...

 Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1986 and in 1987, Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards
Edwin Edwards
Edwin Washington Edwards served as the Governor of Louisiana for four terms , twice as many terms as any other Louisiana chief executive has served. Edwards was also Louisiana's first Roman Catholic governor in the 20th century...

 made her an honorary colonel and aide-de-camp.

Victim of forgery

In 1974, there were rumors that Hunter forgeries
Art forgery
Art forgery is the creation of works of art which are falsely attributed to other, usually more famous, artists. Art forgery can be extremely lucrative, but modern dating and analysis techniques have made the identification of forged artwork much simpler....

 were being sold by William J. Toye
William J. Toye
William James Toye is an art forger in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He paints in styles copied from Paul Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley; Toye has also copied the style of Claude Monet. Toye, his wife, and Robert E. Lucky, a New Orleans art dealer, were indicted on charges of...

 in New Orleans. Decades later, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) investigated reports of forgery of Hunter's works and raided the home of Toye in September 2009. Toye, who was accused of selling forged paintings three times over the course of four decades, pleaded guilty in federal court on June 6, 2011. Others, including a relative of Hunter's and one of Henry's have forged Hunter's artwork as well, though Whitehead says Toye's fakes were the best. His forgeries were painted on vintage board and his brush strokes and monogram were good replicas of Hunter's, however Hunter normally left smudges on the backs of her work and marred the edges, distinguishing marks missing from Toye's counterfeits. Whitehead said that unlike the work of European masters, which generally has well-documented provenance
Provenance
Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. The term was originally mostly used for works of art, but is now used in similar senses in a wide range of fields, including science and computing...

, Hunter produced thousands of paintings, which she sold from her front door. Also, collectors spending millions are more prone to research the history of their prospective purchases than folk art collectors spending much less. The price for Hunter paintings range between a few thousand dollars to $20,000 according to Whitehead.

Literature

  • François Mignon, illustrated by Clementine Hunter, Melrose Plantation Cookbook (1956) ASIN B000CS68QA
  • James Register, illustrated by Clementine Hunter, The Joyous Coast (1971) Mid-South Press, Shreveport, Louisiana
  • Mildred Hart Bailey, Four Women of Cane River (1980)
  • James Wilson, Clementine Hunter: American Folk Artist (1990) Pelican Publishing Company
  • Shelby R. Gilley, Painting by Heart : The Life and Art of Clementine Hunter, Louisiana Folk Artist (2000) St. Emma Press
  • Art Shiver, Tom Whitehead (editors), Clementine Hunter: The African House Murals (2005) Northwestern State University of Louisiana Press. ISBN 0917898249

External links

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