George Hunt's blues-inspired art on display at the UA

By: Kimber Wenzelburger

Posted: 1/16/08

George Hunt paints the blues.

It isn't the color blue that is the focus of his work, but instead the blues music that has been a part of the painter's life since he was a child growing up in the South.

The Memphis-based artist, born in rural Louisiana in 1940 and raised in Hot Springs, began drawing when he was about 4 years old. His grandmother helped to spark his early interest in art.

"As a small child, I was a sickly child, so I spent a lot of time with my grandmother," Hunt said. She provided him with crayons and paper to help him pass the time.

In fifth grade, Hunt was named as the official artist for his class, and he began to receive attention and praise from his teachers, he said. These days, Hunt is recognized by many as one of the most influential black artists from the South, and his blues-inspired paintings have been exhibited nationwide.

Some examples of Hunt's vibrant work can be seen on the lobby level of Mullins Library through February as part of the "My America: The Southern Blues" project. Hunt's exhibit, titled "Visions of Blues Icons," consists of several paintings hand-picked by the artist to spotlight the rich history of the blues in Arkansas.

"My roots are in Arkansas," Hunt said, "and Arkansas is one of the frontiers for blues. Many blues and jazz musicians came to Hot Springs when I was growing up, and I was influenced by those people."

One man whom Hunt found particularly influential was legendary blues musician Robert Johnson. The singer/guitarist was among many famous blues musicians - including Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin' Wolf and Peter "Memphis Slim" Chatman - who played in Arkansas during their careers.

It wasn't until after Hunt left Arkansas, however, that he really began to express his love of blues music through his art. After studying art under a renaissance master at the Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical & Normal College - which is now UA Pine Bluff - he moved to Memphis, Tenn., and began post-graduate work at the University of Memphis.

Hunt continued to paint European-inspired work at UM, until his advisor encouraged him to take inspiration from things familiar to him in life, he said.

"[My advisor] said to me, 'Why don't you paint what you know?'" Hunt said. "I grew up listening to the blues, and it was all around me in Memphis, so it was just a natural kind of thing."

Hunt spent 36 years teaching art and coaching football at George Washington Carver High School in Memphis before retiring to focus on his art full-time. Since that time, he has been commissioned to create images for numerous venues, including 24 portraits for the Blues & Legends Hall of Fame Museum in 1996 and original images for the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival posters, which Hunt has been doing for about 15 years.

Although Hunt said all of his projects have been fun, his favorite was the task of painting 25 portraits of blues personalities for the Famous Dave's Legendary Pit Bar-B-Que restaurant in downtown Chicago. The paintings, which each measure about 40 inches by 60 inches, are prominently displayed in the three-story restaurant.

One reason Hunt particularly enjoyed this project is because it gave him the opportunity to paint the portraits of real people whose music had influenced him, he said.

"I don't do paintings of specific artists much," Hunt said, "because there are complications with copyrights when it comes to using people's likenesses." Instead, many of the people seen in Hunt's paintings are what he calls "vapors of my imagination."

"I call them 'vapors' because I combine characteristics of different people to create one person," Hunt said. "I'm a big fan of Picasso; I cut and paste and distort."

One thing that sets Hunt's work apart from Picasso and other cubist artists, however, is the subject matter. The vast majority of Hunt's paintings focus on the experiences of blacks in the South.

Aside from his blues-inspired pieces, Hunt has also created artworks based on the Civil Rights Movement. One of these paintings, created in 1997, was issued as a postage stamp in 2005 as part of the U.S. Postage Service series "To Form a More Perfect Nation."

The painting, "America Cares/ Little Rock Nine," was originally commissioned for the Central High School Museum in Little Rock but first spent five years hanging in the White House. At that time, First Lady Hillary Clinton wrote in a personal note to Hunt, "We are grateful that our visitors and staff have such a powerful image of hope and freedom to greet, inspire and inform them."

Hunt was a senior in high school in Hot Springs in 1957 when Little Rock's Central High School was integrated. However, it wasn't until about a decade later that he really became involved in the Civil Rights movement.

"The integration in Little Rock didn't have too much influence on me at the time," Hunt said. "I was much more interested in sports back then."

Hunt participated in a few marches while in college in Pine Bluff, but he still was not extremely involved in the Civil Rights movement at that time, he said.

"[Martin Luther King Jr.] spoke at a graduation ceremony while I was at Pine Bluff, but I didn't go," Hunt said. "I just really didn't see any need to go see him speak."

However, Hunt, who was living in Memphis at the time of King's assassination in 1968, was, like many others, galvanized by the Civil Rights leader's death. After that, he began to be more involved in marches and other Civil Rights efforts.

"I became more of a Civil Rights advocate after '68," he said.

Hunt's "Visions of Blues Icons" exhibit in Mullins Library is on display as part of the UA's "Days of Recommitment" events for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Hunt will be on campus to lead a "Walkin' Talkin' Gallery Tour" of the exhibit at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Friday, Feb. 8. Hunt said he will welcome questions during the tour.

"I'll probably talk a little about what motivated me to do each individual piece," he said, "but I want to focus on people's questions. I'm more interested in talking about what people are interested in."