Clementine Hunter, Louisiana Artist

A woman sitting on the ground writing.


 

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.Possibly Louisiana’s most famous artist,  Clementine Hunter was born in 1886 at Hidden Hill Plantation and spent most of her life at nearby Melrose Plantation  in the  Cane River region in Louisiana owned  by John and Carmelite (“Miss Cammieâ€) Henry  She worked as a field hand and was proud she could pick 250 pounds  a day  (a single cotton boll weighs about 0.15 oz).  She  bore seven children and on the morning before giving birth to one of them, picked 78 pounds of cotton.

In middle age, Miss Cammie brought Clementine into the Big House to cook and clean. There  she met Alberta Kinsey, a New Orleans artist who inspired Clementine to  paint.  In her words, ”

“..in the 1930s Alberta Kinsey came here…to paint and I had to

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.
Melrose Plantation quilt, Clementine Hunter

clean up her room. She gave me some old tubes of paint to throw in the trash, but I didn’t pay her no mind. I kept them and tried marking up some pictures in my cabin.”

Hunter painted what she  knew; plantation life in the early 20th century.  Although records were not kept,  she may have produced as  many as 10,000 works on canvas, bottles, boards, jugs, spittoons, lampshades and whatever else captured her fancy.    She also  produced quilts, pottery and needlepoint.  Many were originally sold for a few dollars or less.  Neither she nor any of her children ever  owned any of her paintings – she either sold them or gave them away.

Clementine Hunter achieved significant recognition during her lifetime, including  a letter from  President Ronald Reagan and an invitation to the White House from U.S. President Jimmy Carter (which she declined). She was the first African-American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Delgado Museum (now the New Orleans Museum of Art) . Radcliffe College included her in its “Black Women Oral History Project (1980).  Northwestern State University of Louisiana granted her an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1986 and  Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards designated her  a state honor. One of the more well-known displays of Hunter’s artwork is located in African House at Melrose Plantation.

A person sitting on the ground in front of water.
African House, Clementine Hunter

Clementine Hunter died on January 1, 1988 at the age of 101,  outliving most of her children.    She never learned to read or write and taught herself to paint.

 

5 thoughts on “Clementine Hunter, Louisiana Artist

  1. Reblogged this on ArtReach at Home and commented:
    Thanks Louise Canfield for this great post about one of the South’s best known African American artists Clementine Hunter. Hunter worked hard all her life. Her joy was in making art. Art still refreshes the spirit! Visit Real Southern, Real Women blog to read more.

    1. Thank you! She’s one of my favorite artists. Interestingly, I have found recently that there were other women who painted similarly but their work got overlooked.

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