Clementine Hunter Signed Print: No. 38 of 60 copies
A professionally printed silkscreen or serigraph by Clementine Hunter, pencil signed with her distinctive backwards overlapping "CH". Clementine Hunter (1887-1988) was a self-taught folk painter from the Cane River region of Louisiana. Her brightly colored paintings depicted Black Southern life including weddings, funerals, baptisms, farming and domestic labor.
Mat framed with "38/60 D.C." penciled at lower left of print (and also on the mat) and with "© 1976 Dorothy Cohen" in pencil on the back of the print. An obituary in The Natchitoches Times for Dorothy Cohen (1914-2004) of Cane River Lake, Louisiana states: "Acting in her role as an Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches Board member, she significantly influenced the establishment of the Melrose Historic Home Foundation. Her recognition of and involvement with Clementine Hunter in her earliest days inspired others to give note to Hunter as an artistic historian of a period and time fast fading". Clementine Hunter lived and worked at Melrose Plantation for 75 years. It is unclear why the print bears a copyright for Dorothy Cohen, but perhaps it can be surmised that Ms. Cohen may have collaborated with Hunter to produce the print.
With a date of 1976, it is relatively early in Hunter's career trajectory, although she had been painting for many years by that time. Though she first exhibited as early as 1949, Hunter did not gain much public attention until later in the 1970s when both the Museum of American Folk Art in New York and LACMA in Los Angeles exhibited her paintings. Clementine Hunter's works are now included in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the American Folk Art Museum among many others.
The previous framing bears a sticker from "The Showcase, Custom Framing, Alexandria, Louisiana". Provenance: obtained from an estate in Portland, Oregon. Research yields very few examples of Clementine Hunter prints being produced during her lifetime, and the association to Cohen helps authenticate the print. A rare find.
[If you have any additional information on this print or Clementine Hunter prints produced during her lifetime, we'd love to hear from you]. Item #1589.
Condition: Very Good+, some spotting and residue to margins of paper under mat (not visible when matted, see detail photos); print is clean and bright, and was previously framed under glass.
Price: $2,750.00