Melrose Quilt

Artwork Description

Clementine Hunter's bold color choices harmonize with the shapes of the landscape. Her quilts, like her paintings, illustrate everyday stories she felt historians overlooked--especially those of Black workers in the South. Melrose Quilt depicts buildings at the Melrose plantation in Natchitoches Parish, in Central Louisiana, where Hunter and her family moved to work as sharecroppers. She represents the Big House in the center, Yucca House above, and African House at bottom right, where in 1955 Hunter painted a mural of plantation life.
At the plantation, Hunter worked first as a field hand and later as a cook and housekeeper. When the owner of Melrose died, his wife made the plantation a retreat for visiting artists. Hunter's exposure to artists there and her resourcefulness with leftover paints led to the beginning of her artistic practice.