Over the last decade or so, the organizers of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival have commissioned a painting of a particular musician for each year's official Jazz Fest poster. The two artists, painter and musician, tend to match up well, such as in 1998 when the psychedelic brushstrokes of James Michalopoulos depicted the man known as the Night Tripper, Dr. John.
For 2005, the official poster is George Hunt's deeply colored, almost folk-art painting of Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. This match is a good one, too. As many New Orleanians already know thanks to his frequent local concerts, "Gatemouth" Brown plays the blues with his own unique Cajun and country influences. Meanwhile, Memphis-based George Hunt has made a name for himself depicting the blues visually.
When Hunt was asked to do the portrait, he was already very familiar with Gate's music. Hunt actually first encountered "Gatemouth" Brown in Port Arthur, Texas, when Hunt was only 15 and Gate was in his early 30s.
"I went to see him with my uncle at a joint, the type with peanut shells on the floor," Hunt recounts. "At the time, Gate had a popular tune out called the Okie Dokie Stomp. It had no words, but you had to move your feet when you heard it."
For his acrylic and mixed media portrait of the musician, Hunt aimed for simplicity. Hunt explains that in concert Gate lets his music speak for him; he doesn't engage in a lot of banter with the audience and when he's finished his last song, he just walks off stage.
Although Hunt uses the blues as his subject matter for a great number of his paintings, he never made a conscious decision to focus on it. Blues music has always been a part of his life, and he is just painting what he knows. Hunt used to live in Helena, Ark., where his mother-in-law owned a club called the Dreamland Café. There he encountered many blues personalities who are now considered legends. Currently, Hunt's studio is located on blues-saturated Beale Street in Memphis.
Hunt grew up in a family of sharecroppers who moved frequently across rural Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas, but European images somehow found their way to him. "My mother worked on cane plantation, and she brought me magazines from the farm owner," he says. "The first image I remember is Picasso. I developed a love for him that's still with me."
A cubist influence is easy to spot in Hunt's work, which also evokes Braque and Modigliani. For African-American painters, Hunt cites the art of Jacob Lawrence, William H. Johnson, and Romare Bearden as touchstones. Although he has formal training, Hunt adds that he strongly identifies with folk art as well.
Hunt's paintings normally include a three-dimensional aspect, something which the two-dimensional Jazz Fest poster unfortunately doesn't capture well. He used to work with oil paints, building them up in layers in a technique called impasto. Twenty years ago, an allergy to oil paints forced him to switch to acrylics which can't layer up to create three-dimensional effects. So, Hunt began using cut-and-paste techniques and incorporating bits of fabric and found objects into his canvases.
Not all Hunt's work is blues-oriented. To memorialize the Little Rock Nine, the nine schoolchildren who were forced into the national spotlight in 1957 during early school integration efforts, he painted a piece for a museum. The painting attracted the attention of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and it hung in the White House for three years during the Clinton presidency. Now, the US Postal Service will feature the painting on a stamp as part of a series commemorating civil rights events.
During Jazz Fest's first weekend, look for Hunt signing his posters at a Congo Square tent. He knows what to expect as he's been to several Jazz Fests in the past. "I remember bringing a group of children to New Orleans. We saw Harry Connick, Jr., when he was 12 years old playing with Professor Longhair. It wasn't at the Fairgrounds either. There weren't that many people."
For 36 years, Hunt taught art in Memphis public schools. He doesn't miss his teaching duties, though. Now, he has quiet and solitude and can work on his paintings when he wants. "I don't have time to reminisce," says the 64 year-old Hunt. "I'm so busy with what I'm doing now."
