Clementine Hunter : Her Life and Art PDF
Preview Clementine Hunter : Her Life and Art
clementine hunter This page intentionally left blank clementine hunter her life and art Art Shiver and Tom Whitehead louisiana state university press baton rouge Grateful acknowledgment is made to the Cane River National Heritage Area and to the Jack and Ann Brittain family for supporting the publication of this book. Published by Louisiana State University Press Copyright © 2012 by Louisiana State University Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America First printing designer: Michelle A. Neustrom typeface: Whitman, text; Copse, display printer: McNaughton & Gunn, Inc. binder: Acme Bookbinding The Cane River Art Corporation, Natchitoches, Louisiana, holds the copyright to all Hunter images and granted permission to reproduce the paintings by Clementine Hunter appearing in this book. library of congress cataloging-in-publication data Shiver, Art, 1946– Clementine Hunter : her life and art / Art Shiver and Tom Whitehead. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8071-4878-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8071-4879-2 (pdf) — ISBN 978-0-8071- 4880-8 (epub) — ISBN 978-0-8071-4881-5 (mobi) 1. Painters—United States—Biography. 2. African American painters—Biography. I. Hunter, Clementine Criticism and interpretation. II. Title. ND237.H915S55 2013 759.13—dc23 [B] 2012011755 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. (cid:31)(cid:31) For Our Parents Geneva and Frank Shiver Grace and R. T. Whitehead This page intentionally left blank Contents Foreword, by Lee Kogan . . . . ix Preface . . . . xvii Introduction . . . . 1 1 A Moment of Recognition: May 17, 1985 . . . . 5 2 From the Cotton Fields to the Big House . . . . 12 3 Memory and a Sense of Place . . . . 22 4 The Remarkable and Enigmatic Mr. Mignon . . . . 33 5 Mr. Pipes and the Artist . . . . 46 6 Becoming an Artist . . . . 57 7 The African House Murals . . . . 68 8 A Lifetime Told in Art . . . . 76 9 Friends, Supporters, and Patrons . . . . 97 10 New Year’s Day, 1988 . . . . 114 11 Fakes, Forgeries, and the FBI . . . . 120 Appendix: The Evolution of Hunter’s Signature . . . . 129 Notes . . . . 133 Bibliography . . . . 141 Index . . . . 145 This page intentionally left blank Foreword proper study and appreciation of the life and art of Clementine Hunter may be likened to the experience of holding a kaleidoscope up to the light and watching its multiple surfaces refract through the movement of reflected light in time and space. Hunter’s life and art deserve study from different per- spectives because there are so many fascinating entry points to her life: self- taught artist, memory painter, diarist, woman, southern African American, and American artist, among them. Hunter was sixty-seven years old when she undertook her most ambitious artistic work: painting the African House Murals at Melrose Plantation, a pro- ject conceived by François Mignon, the plantation’s curator. Hunter’s under- stated acceptance of the commission—“I don’t mind,” she reportedly said— suggests that she felt up to the challenge. She took on the daunting project at an age when most women are on a reduced work schedule or retired, but even more extraordinary than the physical and mental energy she summoned to complete successfully the nine large panels that would cover the four walls of the room was the speed at which she did it: six weeks during one hot summer, June 8–July 21, 1955. Like that of many self-taught artists, Hunter’s artwork arose from the well- springs of experience, imagination, and talent. Expressing themselves in a sin- gular, direct style, Hunter and others were designated “American folk artists,” a category that garnered attention early in the twentieth century (1910–20) with the emergence of a canon based on art historical criteria. In 1910 precisionist artist Charles Sheeler began to study Pennsylvania folk art, architecture, and Shaker design. As participants of Hamilton Easter Field’s Ogunquit (Maine) School of Painting and Sculpture and nearby artists’ colony (1913), modernist artists such as Marsden Hartley, Bernard Karfiol, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Gaston Lachaise, Robert Laurent, Niles Spencer, and Wil- ix
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