George Hunt's brush with the blues

"Delta Bluesman" -- acrylic and mixed media; painting by George Hunt

With "It Came From Memphis," exhibited at D'Edge art gallery through the end of January, painter George Hunt tackles personal iconography that has taken him a lifetime to collect.

"My grandparents were itinerant sharecroppers in Louisiana, Texas, and Arkansas," says Hunt, who was born on a sugar cane plantation outside of Lake Charles, La. "I was sickly, and my great-grandmother took care of me. She would bring me magazines from the big house, and to keep me from being underfoot, she would take me to the commissary for butcher paper and colored pencils. I'd go through and draw images I'd see in the magazines -- that's where I first saw Picasso's work -- along with the chickens and the birds I'd see outside."

George Hunt's "Big Bill, Memphis Minnie".

"Delta Bluesman" -- acrylic and mixed media; painting by George Hunt

During his teenage years, Hunt lived in Hot Springs, Ark., where he came into contact with prostitutes, gamblers, and bona fide gangsters.

Later, he spent time at his mother-in-law's juke joint in Helena, the Dreamland Café, located beneath harmonica master Sonny Boy Williamson's apartment. After arriving in Memphis in the early 1960s, Hunt created holiday decorations for the offices of the Stax recording studio, where he became acquainted with stars like Isaac Hayes and Albert King.

Hunt, now 68, depicts that rich history via acrylic-and-mixed media portraits of blues musicians like Memphis Slim, B.B. King and Memphis Minnie. He paints anonymous juke joint dancers, and renders images of playing cards and graphics torn from "Aunt Sally's Policy Players Dream Book," considered the bible for Southerners who played the illegal lottery game.

In "Dance With Me, Henry," a sharp-dressed couple sways under a Club Paradise poster. He's wearing a fedora and pinstriped pants; she's garbed in a pink dress. In "Be My Baby For Awhile," a man sports an electric guitar, while "Big Bill, Memphis Minnie" depicts the two musicians standing on 1930s-era Beale Street. And "BB -- Peptikon Blues" shows a young, straight-from-the-country B.B. King hawking tonic on WDIA.

The bright acrylics hold substance -- literally. One leg of the dancer's pinstriped pants is actually a strip of fabric ticking; his partner's lace and pantyhose are real. The guitarist's sharp cheekbone is corrugated cardboard, and the neck of his instrument is outlined with rickrack. Memphis Minnie's shirt is constructed from gingham fabric, and King's face is created, tellingly, from tarpaper, with a red bandana jauntily knotted below.

This is familiar ground for those who are already acquainted with this artist's work, particularly collectors of Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival posters, which Hunt has designed for the past two decades.

But not all of Hunt's fans realize that he is a professionally trained artist who is as likely to employ cubist tendencies in his paintings as he is to render the simple lines and angles that exemplify the mid-career work of Harlem Renaissance painter William H. Johnson.

When people describe him as a folk artist, "I just play it off," Hunt says. "A folk artist is generally somebody who's untrained, and I've gone to school and studied all of the old masters."

Hunt was the first member of his family to go to college, on a football scholarship. He originally intended to obtain a coaching degree from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff but ended up with an art certificate instead. He received his graduate degree from the University of Memphis, and taught art at Carver High School in South Memphis for 36 years. His work has hung in the White House, and been featured on U.S. postage stamps.

Deanie Parker, who worked directly with Hunt during her tenure as former assistant executive director of Memphis in May, describes him as a storyteller who's steeped in both African American tradition and culture.

"George always allows you an opportunity to get in touch with the authenticity of Memphis' music," she says of Hunt's creativity.

"His work has an authenticity and a mystique that can only be understood if you can relate to the culture out of which he comes. It's a manifestation of his life, his beliefs, and his experiences that comes from deep within."

Parker says that Hunt's paintings have inspired her to become an investor in original art.

"The man's work speaks to my soul," she says.

George Hunt: "It Came From Memphis"

At D'Edge, 550 South Main St., through Jan. 31. For more information, go to D-EdgeArt.com or call 521-0054.

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