Lot 157: Clementine Hunter O/B Painting, Cotton Gin

Clementine Reuben Hunter (American/Louisiana, 1886/87-1988), “Gin Picking Cotton,” oil on canvasboard painting that depicts a farm landscape with four African American figures who load cotton into a gin building and handle baled cotton. A plume of smoke rises from the building into the blue and purple sky. Signed with monogram, lower right, and titled en verso. Housed in an ebonized wooden frame. Sight: 17 1/2 in. H x 23 1/2 in. W. Framed: 19 5/8 in. H x 25 5/8 in. W. Note: We are grateful to Thomas Whitehead for his assistance in confirming the authenticity of this painting. Biographical note: A self-taught artist, Clementine Hunter created bright, whimsical folk paintings depicting life in and around the Melrose cotton plantation where she lived and worked, near Natchitoches, Louisiana. She did not start painting until her 50s. She used whatever surfaces she could find, and, working from memory, recorded everyday life, from work in the cotton fields to baptisms and funerals. She rendered her figures, usually black, in expressionless profile and disregarded formal perspective and scale. Though she first exhibited in 1949, Hunter did not garner public attention until the 1970s when both the Museum of American Folk Art in New York and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibited her paintings. Even with such success, Hunter chose to stay in Louisiana, working at Melrose Plantation until 1970 when she moved to a small trailer a few miles away on an unmarked road. (Source: The National Museum of Women in the Arts.)

PROVENANCE: Private Southern Collection, acquired directly from the artist. 

CONDITION: Overall very good condition. 1/4 x 1/4 inch flake loss to sky, upper right, with adjacent pinpoint losses, plus negligible surface grime.