Self-Taught Artists

With little education in materials or techniques, self-taught artists create deeply personal works of art that typically illustrate their memories or hopes for a better world. Born in late 1886 or early 1887, Clementine Hunter was a self-taught black folk artist who lived and worked for most of her life on a plantation in Louisiana. While she never learned to read or write, she began making paintings of plantation life in her fifties. She is the first African-American artist to have a solo exhibition at the present-day New Orleans Museum of Art. Hunter’s personal narrative led Robert Wilson, an important avant-garde director who has worked with Philip Glass, Lady Gaga, and other musicians, to create an opera about the life of the artist in 2013. Sister Gertrude Morgan is another important self-taught black folk artist who lived most of her life in New Orleans. In 1965, after a vision of being selected to be the bride of God, she wore only white to symbolize her mystical marriage. Her typical outfit was a nurse’s uniform and cap, as depicted in her work in this collection.

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS