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97 Friends, Supporters, and Patrons There is no difference between a self-taught artist and a taught artist. Anyone who is really good is really good. —Lanford Wilson, Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright I was playing Natchitoches, way down in the South—this goes back to the ’80s—and somebody asked, do you want to meet this primitive artist named Clementine Hunter? She was 101 then, an old, old, old lady who painted these insane primitives, almost three-dimensional. I think the first painting was slaves carrying cotton. —Joan Rivers, comedian while it is clear that françois mignon and James Register were the driving force managing and promoting Clementine Hunter, they were not alone in their recognition of her art, nor were they alone in their support and encouragement. Chance Harvey, the biographer of Louisiana writer Lyle Saxon, offered evidence that Saxon was among the first to recognize Hunter’s talent. She pointed out that Saxon was a regular visitor to Melrose beginning in 1923. From the 1930s, when Hunter’s duties moved from the cotton fields to the Big House, the two would have been acquainted. Hunter included an image of Saxon in her African House Murals. Saxon included a humorous story about Hunter in his posthumously published book The Friends of Joe Gilmore.1 Harvey cites a handwritten note by François Mignon that seems to confirm Saxon’s early recognition of Hunter’s talent: “[Saxon] immediately sensed the value of the Hunter canvases and not only acquired several for his New Orleans apartment, but also presented a fine example to the Louisiana Library Commission, in the office of whose president, Essae Mae Culver, the picture has hung for a number of years.”2 chapter 9 98 Clementine Hunter The Clementine Hunter painting that passed to Essae Mae Culver from Lyle Saxon remains today in the Louisiana State Library archives (See Plate 68). The archivist typed a note and attached it to the back of the painting: “This is one of Clementine Hunter’s early paintings. She gave this to Lyle Saxon who gave it the title: ‘Socialized Medicine.’ Mr. Saxon gave it to Miss Culver, who, in turn, presented it to the State Library.”3 Culver gave reason to believe that she did not realize the significance and value of the painting given to her by Saxon. Many years later, after the Look magazine article was published in 1953, Culver commented to Mignon in a letter: “I did see Clémence’s picture and the article in Look. Isn’t it strange that such an obscure person should get recognition as she has had?”4 Clearly, the painting Saxon gave to Culver originated from Hunter’s earliest period in the late 1930s. Characteristic of this period, the pigments were highly thinned, and there is no signature. The dominant colors of yellow, blue, and black are painted on brown paper, with no underpainting. The artist painted the figure of a large woman in an oversized blue bonnet and apron dominating the picture. She seems to be leaning forward and examining a reclining figure. The scene also includes a yellow house and a large tree with blue foliage. Hunter used overlapping brushstrokes to give the woman’s long dress a feeling of texture. In the hem area of the dress she darkened the strokes to provide emphasis and separation. Interestingly, the artist’s concept of a painting extends beyond the paper to the surface of the timeworn wooden frame. She painted a small flower in the top center of the rustic frame. This painting from Hunter’s earliest period, combined with its stellar provenance, is one of the more significant and valuable works in the artist’s oeuvre. Socialized Medicine is the only Hunter work that can be traced with certainty to Saxon. If he had others in his Vieux Carré apartment, there is no known record of what they were or where they might be. Lyle Saxon died in 1946, and the best years of Hunter’s art career lay ahead. Clarence John Laughlin The photographer Clarence John Laughlin, who was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1905, is best known for wandering Louisiana, visiting decaying plantations, and compiling a collection of photographs that captured the fading images of the Old South. Many of the photographs are included in 99 Friends, Supporters, and Patrons his successful 1948 book, Ghosts along the Mississippi. Laughlin was largely self-educated, having left high school in his freshman year. He taught himself...

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