CLEMENTINE HUNTER (1886 - 1988)
Untitled (Melrose Plantation).

Oil on board, circa 1980s. 609x762 mm; 24x30 inches. Initialed in oil, lower right.

Provenance: acquired from Gilley's Gallery, Louisiana, private collection, Maryland (1980s).

Famed Louisiana self-taught artist, Clementine Hunter was born on the Hidden Hill Plantation in rural Louisiana where her grandparents had been slaves. When she was twelve, her family moved to Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches Parish to work as sharecroppers. Clementine worked as a field hand, cook, and housekeeper. Melrose Plantation was made into a retreat for visiting artists; Hunter took up painting an artist's left-behind paint and brushes in her fifties. She painted everyday images of the activities of the Black families and workers, and made pictorial quilts. A 1953 article in Look magazine drew her national attention. Three years later, the Delgado Museum (now the New Orleans Museum of Art) organized a solo exhibition for Hunter, the first for an African-American artist by a Louisiana museum - even though the segregation laws at the time prohibited Hunter from entering the exhibition space during public viewing hours.

Hunter's artworks today are found in many public collections including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of African-American History and Culture, the New Orleans Museum of Art, the American Folk Art Museum, New York and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

Thank you to Clementine Hunter expert and author Tom N. Whitehead for confirming the authenticity of this painting.