Clemetine Hunter Home and Studio

Clemetine Hunter Home and Studio. . , This simple frame house was the home of Clementine Hunter from 1954-1977. Hunter gained fame in the mid-20th century as a self-taught folk artist whose works captured her memories of plantation life with images of picking cotton, washing clothes, threshing pecans and gatherings for weddings, baptisms and funerals. , Born on a nearby plantation, Hunter moved to Melrose with her family around 1900 when she was a teen-ager. She picked cotton and later worked as a housekeeper and cook. , Hunter's artistic spirit was sparked in 1939 when she created her first painting on a window shade, no doubt inspired by the artists around her. Long-time guest and writer Francis Mignon saw some of Hunter's early works and encouraged her to continue painting. Hunter worked all day at the Big House and painted late at night. Over four decades, Hunter created works on any surface she could find including canvas, bottles, boards, jugs, spittoons, milk jugs, lumber scraps and lampshades. , Hunter sold her artwork for as little as 25 cents to a few dollars. The admission price for a tour of paintings in her cottage was 50 cents. The cost increased to a dollar if a visitor wanted a photo taken with the artist. Never having learned to read or write, Hunter did not keep records so it is impossible to know how many paintings she created and sold. Estimates range from 5,000 to 10,000. , In the last years of her life, Hunter bought a mobile home and moved upriver. She painted until the end of her life, dying at the age of 101 on January 1, 1988. Hunter's true significance lies in the social messages and historical context of her art. Today, collectors pay thousands for a painting by Clementine Hunter and her work is exhibited in museums, galleries and private collections across the country., Recognition for Clementine Hunter's Art. Clementine Hunter never became wealthy from her art, but her work became popular during her lifetime. , Accolades include: , . A 1953 feature in Look magazine brought national attention. , . In 1955, Hunter was the first African American woman to have a solo exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art, then called the Delgado Museum of Art. , . In 1970s, the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibited her work. Hunter was identified as "the most celebrated of all Southern contemporary painters." , . Hunter was invited to the White House by President Jimmy Carter. (She declined and never left Louisiana.) , . By the 1980s, Hunter's art was part of large public and private collections. , . In 2016, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in Washington D.C. The museum's collections include a number of Hunter's paintings., The Artist's Home, Hunter lived and painted in this small home during her most prolific period 1954-1977, which includes the painting of her famed murals in 1955, located in African House (to the left of this building). , Hunter's experiences working at Melrose Plantation allowed her to view both sides of segregation as evident in her paintings. Her thousands of paintings are a visual merican woman, a story not often told. , The Hunter cabin further tells her story by showing the home in which she created this important body of work. , In 1977, the Hunter cabin was relocated less than a quarter-mile to this site by the Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches to avoid demolition. The Hunter cabin is a typical four-room lumber with a hand-produced quality, ranging in varied Cane River cabin, wood framed with true dimensional heavy clapboards of eight, ten and twelve inches.