If you have been watching the prices of Clementine Hunter's work over the past two years, you will know that they have often soared to astronomical heights - particularly for the more colorful and interesting ones such as this. Black artists have been in the spotlight lately, and while Clementine Hunter has been a big regional artist for a very long time, she's a national figure now and being added to many museum collections. Institutions and prominent collectors have moved in hard. I was very happy to get this one. At any rate, the first thing to ask about any Clementine is: is it authentic. Yes, there are fakes, and paintings by her son that are mistaken for (or presented as) hers. This one was in the collection of a New Orleans local (Gillis W. Long), and came through the St. Charles Gallery; I knew the owner, who died maybe 5 years ago. Of course it has my own guarantee as well; I have sold many Clementines. You can find fakes at auction houses (many of them outside of the New Orleans area) and other venues that don't ask questions, for a lot less money, but don't be fooled!
Now, about the painting. Wakes are a fixture of southern Black culture. A wake occurs before the funeral of one who has died. It's a social rite that highlights the idea that the loss is one of a social group and affects that group as a whole. Friends and relatives stop by to view the body, often surrounded by flowers, photographs and elaborate decorations of many kinds. There is weeping, and there are memories shared. Clementine Hunter would have attended many dozens of wakes in her long time on earth living at the Melrose Plantation, and you can be sure this experience was one of the central ones of her life and a superb example of her more important work. You can read biographical information about her below. The painting is 16" x 24", slightly larger with frame. Proudly presented by Guy Lyman Fine Art, New Orleans, with our firm guarantee of satisfaction.
PLEASE NOTE that while I now own this painting, it is not yet in my possession as of the writing of this description, while arrangements are made to get it to me. So if you order it in the near future there might be a slight delay before it arrives to you. Thanks very much!
From AskArt:
Often referred to as “the black Grandma Moses,” Clementine Hunter painted four to five thousand paintings, which were boldly colored images in folk art style of plantation life in Louisiana. Her subjects included everyday activities such as doing laundry and festive events including weddings, dances, and church going. She also did mural painting, and a number of her works had Christian religious subjects.
She was born at Hidden Hill Plantation near Natchitoches, Louisiana, and lived there the remainder of her life of one-hundred-one years, raising seven children and working in the fields. She attended a local Catholic school, but quit at a young age and never learned to read or write. At age sixteen, she moved to nearby Melrose Plantation, where she worked for many years as a field hand.
Her first male companion and father of two of her children was Charlie Dupree, who died in 1914. Ten years later she married Emanuel Hunter, and moved into the plantation house where she was in charge of the domestic work. Becoming associated with the plantation mistress, Ms. Cammie Henry, changed Hunter’s life. Henry, was an archivist and artist who actively encouraged the arts. She opened her home to artists and authors who needed a quiet place to work. It was at Melrose that Hunter first began her production of hand made quilts, dolls, and lace curtains.
Meeting artist friends of Ms. Henry, Hunter met many people in the art world and was especially influenced and promoted by Francois Mignon, who was an artist-in-residence at the plantation. In 1946, under his direction, she did her first work, a plantation baptism scene, from a few partially used tubes of oil paint on a window shade that he provided. Another supporter at that time was James Register, also an artist-in- residence, and he obtained a Julius Rosenwald Foundation Grant for her. He encouraged her to do abstract art, which she did while letting him choose the titles.
But she preferred the folk art style. From that time, she was prolific, and created over four-thousand scenes of plantation life on whatever materials were available from scrap wood to paper bags. She thinned her oil paint so much it resembled watercolor. She sold many of her first works for a dime or quarter to pay for her husband’s medical treatment.
Legacy and honors:
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. When she completed the mural, 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.”
The cafe and snack bar at the Alexandria Museum of Art is named for Hunter.
She was the first African-American artist to have a solo exhibition at the Delgado Museum (now the New Orleans Museum of Art). She achieved significant recognition during her lifetime, including an invitation to the White House from U.S. President Jimmy Carter and letters from both President Ronald Reagan and U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr..
Radcliffe College included Hunter in its Black Women Oral History Project, published in 1980. Northwestern State University of Louisiana granted her an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1986. The following year, Louisiana governor Edwin Edwards designated her as an honorary colonel, a state honor, and aide-de-camp.
Hunter has been the subject of biographies and artist studies, and inspired other works of art. In 2013 composer Robert Wilson presented a new opera about her: Zinnias: the Life of Clementine Hunter, at Montclair State University in New Jersey.
Sources:
Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art, Volume II
Chuck and Jan Rosenak, Museum of American Art Folk Art Encyclopedia
“Clementine Hunter,” Wikipedia, Web, Mar. 2016
Alice Rae Yelen, “Passionate Visions,” American Art Review, February, 1995