and participating in baptisms, weddings, and funer- als. Crucifixions and nativity scenes were also among the subjects she painted. She loved flowers, particularly zinnias, and often painted them dis- played in large pots. To encourage her to experi- ment, her friend, the teacher and writer James Register, commissioned Hunter to create a number of abstract works. Register realized, however, that H Hunter preferred to follow her own muse to make representational works. Using oil paint and gouache, Hunter painted in a flat style, close to the picture plane, the imaginary window that separates the viewer from the image, using pure, bright colors. Linear layering, the plac- ing of shapes above or on top of other shapes, was HUNTER, CLEMENTINE (1886-1988) drew upon substituted for shading and naturalistic perspective. her experiences of living and working as a field Hunter painted mostly on cardboard, occasionally hand at the Hidden Hill plantation near on canvas, and on other materials as diverse as win- Cloutiersville, Louisiana, and working as a cook at dow shades, lampshades, spittoons, and bottles. the Melrose Plantation in Nacthitoches Parish, This prolific painter produced several thousand Louisiana, to produce thousands of paintings that paintings and most were about twenty by thirty recorded daily plantation life. A mecca for artists, inches in size, but among her masterpieces were Melrose was an ideal place to stoke Hunter’s desire room-sized murals. Melrose’s Africa House Mural, to “mark a picture.” painted by Hunter, documents the diverse activities Born Clementine Reuben in 1886 at the Hidden of plantation life. Among the mural’s vignettes is a Hill plantation, this African American artist wit- self-portrait of the artist, seated in a chair and paint- nessed the gradual dissolution of the plantation sys- ing in front of an easel. Hunter also created several tem in her lifetime. The eldest of seven children, hand-sewn, appliquéd, pictorial quilts with scenes she gave birth to seven children like her mother, of life at Melrose. The different signature initials she Antoinette Adams. After her husband, Charles used during her life are an aid in dating many of her Dupre, died in 1914, she married Emmanuel works. Hunter, a woodchopper at Melrose in 1924. Hunter Hunter was motivated to make art until the last picked cotton and pecans to help to provide for her few months of her life, when she became too ill to family and took in washing and ironing from Mel- continue working. She said, “God gave me the rose when Emmanuel was diagnosed with cancer in power. Sometimes I try to quit paintin’. I can’t. I the 1940s. A creative person, she sewed clothing, can’t.” She also acknowledged that “Paintin’ is a lot made dolls, wove baskets, and created functional, harder than picking cotton. Cotton’s right there for pieced cotton quilts for her family in the spare time you to pull off the stalk, but to paint you got to she could find. sweat yo’ mind.” She thought of her art as “a gift Hunter began making art using the discarded from the Lord”. Hunter’s achievement went beyond paint tubes of the artist, Alberta Kinsey, a guest of providing pleasure for viewers. Her pictures of Cammie Henry, the owner of Melrose. Encouraged southern plantation life recorded over more than by the landscape artist and historian, M. François half a century are important documents—as impor- Mignon, another visitor to Melrose, Hunter began to tant as letters or diaries—of a significant era in paint people working on the plantation planting American history. cotton; harvesting gourds, pecans, and sugar cane; Hunter received a measure of artistic recognition making syrup; and washing clothes. She portrayed during her lifetime. She was awarded an honorary women doing kitchen chores, paring apples, and doctorate from Northwestern University in 1986, caring for children. She painted people in lighter and her work is represented in the permanent col- moments dancing, playing cards, and socializing on lections of many American museums and has been Saturday night at the local honky-tonk. Religion was seen in exhibitions throughout the United States. an important part of Hunter’s life and that of the community, so she painted people going to church See also Folk Painting.

1 AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM

Once known as the Kent Limner and the Border Limner, the itinerant artist produced Girl in Red with Her Cat and Dog (c. 1830) in his Kent style, now an important holding of the American Folk Art Museum.

BIBLIOGRAPHY tions, many of which also have been seen in other Gilley, Shelby R. Painting By Heart: The Life and Art of Clemen- museums through an active traveling exhibition tine Hunter. Baton Rouge, La, 2000. program. Kogan, Lee. “Unconventional Eloquence: The Art of Clementine At the time of its founding, the American Folk Art Hunter.” African American Folklife in Louisiana, vol. XVII (1993): p. 33-45 Museum was without a collection of its own— Sellen, Betty-Carol and Cynthia Johanson. 20th Century Ameri- unlike the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center can Folk, Self Taught, and . N.Y., 1993. or the Shelburne Museum, which were established Wilson, James L. . Gretna, La., 1988. around distinguished collections. The first object LEE KOGAN entering the museum’s collection was the now famous Flag Gate (c. 1876), the gift in 1962 of Her- AMERICAN FOLK ART MUSEUM, known earlier in bert W. Hemphill, Jr., one of the institution’s found- its history as the Museum of Early American Folk ing trustees and an influential pioneer in the field. Arts (1961-66) and the Museum of American Folk Since then the museum’s holdings have grown to Art (1966-2001), was established in encompass over 4,000 objects in various media, in 1961. One of very few urban museums devoted including the highly important collection formed by to folk art in the United States, the American Folk Ralph Esmerian, president of the museum’s board Art Museum has supported a broad-based program from 1977 to 1999, and chairman since then. Among of exhibitions since it was founded. Even during its the major works of art in the museum’s collection is first decade, the institution staked out a national and Ammi Phillips’s great portrait, Girl in Red Dress with even international purview for its programming. Her Cat and Dog (c. 1830). Since then it has presented more than 220 exhibi- The museum publishes Folk Art (formerly The

2 TATTOO

Clarion), a quarterly magazine; issues exhibition New York tattooists Charlie Wagner, who was active catalogs; and offers graduate courses in folk art about 1900-52, and Bill Jones, active about 1930-59, studies in association with New York University and designed other tattoo machines after O’Reilly’s as part of the Folk Art Institute, an accredited edu- invention, which were a little different because cational division of the museum. In 1998, the muse- magnetic coils created the pushing action of the um established The Contemporary Center, a needles, and these became standards of the trade. division devoted to collection, exhibition, and study Other American tattoo innovators, such as Chicago’s of the paintings, sculpture, and installations of Owen Jensen also designed successful tattoo twentieth- and twenty-first-century, self-taught machines. artists. In 2001, The Contemporary Center A codified lexicon of tattoo designs coalesced announced the acquisition, by purchase and gift, of from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth cen- twenty-four works of art by the Chicago artist, turies from traditional life-affirming or magical , as well as an archive of Darger’s marks tattooed by sailors on their skin to prevent manuscript books, tracings, drawings, and source mishaps associated with their dangerous profession. materials. Because sailors lived on salt pork, the pig became a After many years in inadequate space, the muse- powerful symbol and sailors had small images of um inaugurated its own building in late 2001. pigs tattooed on the left instep as a charm to pre- Designed by architects Tod Williams and Billie vent drowning. Sailors often had the image of a Tsien, the 30,000 square foot structure at 45 West rooster tattooed on their right instep, a reference to Fifty-third Street in New York City includes a library, the cock’s crow that the angel Gabriel was sup- auditorium, classrooms, and exhibition galleries, posed to have heard as the word of God. If lost at among other facilities. sea, these sailors believed this symbol would help connect them with their maker. In short order, other See also Robert Bishop; Mary C. Black; Adele images associated with maritime, masculine, and Earnest; Ralph Esmerian; Herbert W. Hemphill, martial culture were developed, adopted, and codi- Jr.; . fied. Images of American eagles holding cannons, sailing ships framed with naked mermaids, Ameri- BIBLIOGRAPHY can flags with banners reading “Liberty” became Earnest, Adele. Folk Art in America: A Personal View. Exton, Pa, part of the vocabulary of tattoo in the United States. 1984. Tattooist and “Sailor” Jerry Collins (1911-73) who Hartigan, Lynda Roscoe. Made with Passion. Washington, D.C., lived in Honolulu, Hawaii, created some of the most 1990. elegant examples of classic American tattoo art Hoffmän, Alice J. “The History of the Museum of American Folk Art: An Illustrated Timeline.” The Clarion, vol. 14 (Winter, using his natural flair for line and his drafting abili- 1988-89): 36-63. ty. His graceful, but provocative rendering of female Wertkin, Gerard C. “The Museum at Forty: Four Decades of pin-ups became legendary among the sailors of the Achievement,” Folk Art, vol. 26 (Summer 2001): 43-51. Pacific Fleet. GERARD C. WERTKIN Before O’Reilly’s innovation, the practice of tat- tooing by hand was typified by personalities such as TATTOO, the marking of the skin with indelible Gus Wagner (1871-1941) who was born in Marietta, inks in patterns and designs, had largely been a pas- Ohio. He had become a merchant seaman in 1897, time of superstitious, ship bound sailors and a scat- traveled the world for four years, and claimed to tering of port town practitioners around the globe, have learned the hand-tattooing technique from who had hand-poked their designs until this activ- tribesmen in Java and Borneo. During his forty-year ity was transformed into an occupation employing career as a tattooist, he promoted himself as “The specialists with artistic flair and mechanical apti- Most Artistically Marked Up Man In America.” Men tude. A maritime-related folk art in America, tattoo- and women like Wagner and his heavily tattooed ing was revolutionized in 1892 when Samuel wife Maud, brought the practice of tattooing inland O’Reilly invented the electric tattoo machine in his away from the port town settings, traveling around Chatham Square, Bowery tattoo shop in New York America as tattooists, tattooed attractions, and circus City. He modified Thomas Edison’s Electric Engrav- performers. They worked in vaudeville houses, ing Pen, changing the tube tip assembly to hold ink. penny arcades, county fairs, and wild west His machine worked on a rotary-cam assembly prin- shows, exhibiting themselves to curious onlookers. cipal that pushed the tattoo needle into the skin. Wagner’s sales pitch was, “I’ve got a history of my

3 TATTOO life on my breast, a history of America on my back, In the twenty-first century, tattooing has emerged a romance with the sea on each arm, the history of from its historical legacy and entered the cultural Japan on one leg, and the history of China on the mainstream as a youth-based, popular art form. Sur- other.” prisingly, the technology of tattoo machines has Modern tattooing, dating from the late nineteenth changed little over the last one hundred years, but century, coalesced around the specialized culture of tattoo artwork has changed dramatically and the electric tattoo machine and a standardized become specialized into style categories. Pigment assortment of tattoo designs referred to as “flash” technology has improved so that tattooists now emerged. The term flash was borrowed by tattooists have a limitless assortment of shades and colors from the jargon of carnival and circus sign painters from which to choose. and described graphic, eye-catching signage. In the quickly modernizing culture of early twentieth cen- BIBLIOGRAPHY tury America, the specialized knowledge needed to Hardy, Donald Edward. Sailor Jerry Collins: American Tattoo control and understand the electric tattoo machine Master. Honolulu, Hawaii, 1994. elevated tattooing to a modern profession. Artistic Lucas, Don. The Father of American Tattooing, Franklin Paul Rogers. New Orleans, La., 1990. values developed around this specialized, mechani- McCabe, Michael. Tattooing New York City: Style and Continuity cal knowledge that focused on protecting the pro- in a Changing Art Form. Atglen, Pa., 2001. fession from “outsiders.” Tattoo techniques were McCabe, Michael. New York City Tattoo: The Oral History of an not openly discussed; the locations of sources of Urban Art. Honolulu, Hawaii, 1997. color pigments, needles, tattoo machines, and Paul Rogers Tattoo Research Center, Museum. American Tattoo: The Art of Gus Wagner. New York, designs were kept secret. N.Y., 2000. New York City tattooist, Lew Alberts, a wallpaper MICHAEL MCCABE designer who was active as a tattooist about 1904, worked on Sands Street in Brooklyn, New York, at MEADERS, LANIER (1917-98) was one of the most the main gate of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He is gifted of Southern potters from the Mossy Creek credited with redesigning, standardizing, and community in Cleveland, Georgia. Established in improving the look of early tattoo art. Norfolk, Vir- 1893 by his grandfather, John Milton Meader and ginia, tattooist August “Cap” Coleman is also credit- carried on by his father Cheever, Lanier Meader’s ed with changing the look of early tattoo designs pottery produced both practical pottery for house- into the first successful and workable designs that hold use and artistic forms, particularly the were hung on tattoo shop walls as prototypes from grotesque “face jugs” so popular with contemporary which customers were encouraged to choose a collectors. design for their tattoos. Coleman’s artistic ability Everything in Meader’s shop smacked of the established the measure of the standard American nineteenth century: the small wooden shop building style of tattoo art. He transformed the idiosyncratic usually occupied by a single worker, the old look of early machine-designed tattoos into more fashioned potter’s wheel, and the tube-like tunnel easily readable, open designs that stressed a heavy or “hogback” kiln in which the ware was fired. black outline and dynamic black shading tech- The three generations of Meaders took their niques. The color palette of early tattooists was lim- stoneware clay from the same local river bank for ited to carbon-, oxide-, and metallic-based black, over a century, and their traditional alkaline glaze and red and green pigments which were unreliable (composed of clay, wood ash, feldspar, and whit- and faded quickly. When the colors of the painted ing) was dripped over the vessels to produce a rich, flash display sheets or on the bodies of customers brown finish with shades of black, yellow, and faded, the depth of Coleman’s black shading pre- green. served the integrity of the tattoo’s design. Coleman’s Though he loved the old country forms of shading technique was important because it gave pots, jars, and churns that had a real connection to early tattoo designs a firm foundation and his style rural farm life and, particularly, jugs used for the of tattoo design became popular and successful illicit moonshine trade during the time of prohibi- because it sold well. Tattooists contemporary with tion that kept many a country potter in business, Coleman praised his designs: “You can see what the Meaders recognized that survival of his craft design is from twenty-five feet away!” Sailors depended upon production of ceramics for a around the globe who traveled to the port of Nor- broader audience. He became one of the foremost folk prized their Coleman tattoos. makers of the extremely popular face jugs that are

4 HEMPHILL, HERBERT W., JR.

artists in 1968. Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Hemphill acquired an early appreciation of Ameri- ca’s popular culture in this resort town where his father was a prominent businessman. His love of Southern culture owed much to his mother’s presti- gious ancestry in Georgia, while her love of shop- ping and collecting was an equally important formative influence as Hemphill began collecting Americana even as a child. After briefly studying theater, poetry, and paint- ing in Paris and at Bard College in Annandale-on- Hudson, New York, Hemphill moved to New York City in 1949 in hopes of developing a career as an artist. His forte, however, quickly proved to be col- lecting—first African sculpture, then modern Euro- pean and American art, and, ultimately, folk art. Inspired by pioneering collectors such as Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and Jean Lipman, Hemphill focused on early American weathervanes, portraits, watercolors, and furniture during the early 1950s. In 1956, he purchased a pair of non-traditional cigar- store Indians from Sotheby’s auction of Rudolph Haffenreffer’s collection of American trade signs. This acquisition was the first public indication of the unusual and underappreciated works that he became known for championing—so much so that Face jugs produced by Lanier Meaders to appeal to a his detractors and admirers alike often identified general clientele are much in demand by collectors of works as “Hemphill things.” Southern folk pottery. Hemphill was one of six private collectors and dealers who founded the Museum of Early Ameri- can Folk Art (now the American Museum of Folk now a mainstay of the Southern pottery craft. Art) in New York in 1961. A year later he co-organ- Shaped as a face or complete head with eyes and ized the museum’s inaugural exhibition at the Time teeth of the white firing kaolin clay, these humorous and Life Exhibit Center under the auspices of Life or foreboding vessels are individual works of art, magazine, and also donated the first object to enter and took several hours each to complete. Though the museum’s collection—Flag Gate by an unidenti- many Southern folk potters created face jugs, those fied artist, c. 1876. which bear the imprint of Lanier Meaders are In 1964 Hemphill became the museum’s first full among the most highly prized, both for their artistic time curator. Over the next decade he developed an merit and for the continuing tradition that they exhibition program of innovative topics and memo- represent. rable installations, among which Twentieth-Century Folk Art (1970), Macramé (1971), Tattoo (1971), and See also Face Jugs; Stoneware. Occult (1973) are widely considered the epitome of his curatorial career. BIBLIOGRAPHY Hemphill’s perception of folk art’s possibilities Horne, Catherine Wilson, ed. Crossroads of Clay: The Southern Alkaline-Glazed Stoneware Tradition. Columbia, S.C., 1990. changed dramatically in 1968, when artists and folk Sweezy, Nancy. Raised in Clay: The Southern Pottery Tradition. art collectors Michael and Julie Hall introduced him Washington, D.C., 1984. to the Kentucky wood carver Edgar Tolson. Spurred WILLIAM C. KETCHUM by what he frequently described as an epiphany, Hemphill began canvassing the country in search of HEMPHILL, HERBERT W., JR. (1929-98) altered living folk artists. Although he remained interested the course of the folk art field when he began in nineteenth-century folk art, his collection became championing the work of twentieth-century folk decidedly contemporary, national, and ethnically

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