Synopses & Reviews
Clementine Hunter has been called a primitive artist, a folkartist, a naive painter, and a memory painter. Her bold, exuberant style defiesall conventions of traditional art forms. As one critic stated, primitive artreveals a iflash of the spirit.i And that spirit for Clementine was the art of living cultivated by blacks in the Old South. She learned to make the most of life and to celebrate it in her own way. At her death in early 1988, Clementine was 101years old. Born in 1887 at the Hidden Hill Plantation on the Cane River-Lake near Cloutierville, Louisiana, she was in her fifties before she picked up a couple of bent tubes of paint and rendered her first painting . . . on a window shade.The subjects of Clementineis paintings came from her daily life on Louisianais Melrose Plantation in the Cane River country. When asked the title of a painting, Clementine would say, iThat's pickini cotton.i Her descriptions of her paintings became an oral history of singular events of plantation life. Baptisms, funerals, washdays, and the harvesting of sugar cane are just a few of those events documented in her paintings.FranAois Mignon, a close friend and curator/librarian at Melrose, wrote a number of letters to James Register, an art collector and dealer who specialized in Clementineis works. Excerpts from those letters chronicle her growth and development as a major contemporary artist. Some 100 color photographs of her work, a summary of critical commentaries, a detailed biography, and an appendix of permanent exhibits complete this exquisite volume.
Review
andldquo;The women in Picture This! are sketched in brilliant splashes of color, bringing back the familiar image of the Gujarat and the nearby Rajasthan countryside: the desertandrsquo;s sandy browns and greys are lit up by the exuberant yellows, greens, reds and pinks of the long-skirted women. But what I love most is the expressions on their faces. Garva draws each one from memory, and they radiate mischief, intelligence, friendship, determination, skepticism, individuality.andrdquo;
Synopsis
The British publication ARTbibliographies says of Clementine Hunter: American Folk Artist that "the author provides a detailed biography of Hunter, describes her studio, and traces the development of her artistic career in Melrose, Louisiana." Independent Publisher describes it as "a beautifully published testament to an American original."
Clementine Hunter has been called a primitive artist, a folk artist, a naive painter, and a memory painter. Her bold, exuberant style defies all conventions of traditional art forms. As one critic stated, primitive art reveals a "flash of the spirit"-and Hunter was certainly a woman with great spirit. Born in 1887 at the Hidden Hill Plantation near Cloutierville, Louisiana, Hunter did not complete her first painting until she had reached her mid-fifties. She then began her incredible journey from the rural South to international acclaim. Fortunately, Hunter's growing importance in the art community never altered her down-to-earth personality. When asked to title a painting, Hunter would simply state, "That's pickin' cotton." Other subjects include baptisms, funerals, washdays, and sugarcane harvests-all vibrant visual depictions of Hunter's daily life on Louisiana's Melrose Plantation. These paintings, combined with Hunter's descriptions of them, provide a rich history of a culture now gone.
In this indispensable art collection, author James L. Wilson rounds out the colorful story of Hunter's work by including excerpts from the letters of Francois Mignon. Mignon worked as a curator and librarian at Melrose Plantation, where he formed a close personal friendship with Hunter. His letters chronicle her growth and development into a major contemporary artist. Completing the collection are a detailed biography of Hunter, one hundred color photographs of her work, a summary of critical commentary, and an appendix of permanent exhibits.
Synopsis
As children, we used to go with my mom to the trailer . . . to bring Clementine paint and canvas. . . . Clementine would paint the person most important to her as the biggest person, thus my mom was largest in the picture.
--Marguerite Cissy Brittain Picou
. . . her painting impressed me. It is really not at all primitive. It is very civilized--as Gertrude Stein said of the African wood carvings that influenced Matisse and particularly Picasso, almost fifty years ago.
--Alice B. Toklas
The British publication ARTbibliographies says that the author provides a detailed biography of Hunter, describes her studio, and traces the development of her artistic career in Melrose, Louisiana. Independent Publisher describes it as a beautifully published testament to an American original.
Synopsis
Includes photographs of her work, a detailed biography, a summary of critical commentaries, and a list of exhibits and permanent collections that exhibit her work.
Synopsis
From her home in a small village in the Kutch district of Gujarat, Dalit artist Radhaben Garwa has documented the rural womenand#8217;s movement in Western India and beyond through her drawings. Her imagesand#151;more than two hundred of them gathered hereand#151;tell stories of the women from her village and from the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan, the NGO she works with, in their campaigns for womenand#8217;s rights, economic empowerment, and resistance to globalizing corporations.
and#160;
In one sequence of pictures, Garwa receives a phone call inviting her to a meeting abroad; she draws the entire journey from village to airport, from the international destination to her first ride in an elevator. In another, she depicts the Chipko movement of the 1970s against deforestation; in a third, she shows the fragmentation of fields and farming activity as a result of globalization.
and#160;
With an afterword by leading feminist journalist Kalpana Sharma, this full-color compendium of an artistand#8217;s work attests to the beauty in female solidarity.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 155-158) and index.
About the Author
Radhaben Garwa has been drawing and painting the women's movement for the past sixteen years.Sushma Iyengar was one of the founders of KMVS, an organization of rural women based in Kutch, Gujarat.Kalpana Sharma is a senior journalist with The Hindu newspaper and has written on women's issues for many years.