African Queen
"mixed media on panel, 24x36""
2002
Artist George Hunt
Courtesy of Midtown Framer and Art gallery
George Hunt is an artist widely recognized for his work associated with creating original art for the Memphis in May Beale Street Music Festival and other blues music related events. He was a long serving art teacher at George Washington Carver High School, leading a mural program that created a series of large outdoor paintings in the 1980's throughout Downtown and South Memphis, few of which remain today. His work has been honored with a US postage stamp, and was displayed in the White House during the Clinton Presidency. His works depicting blues musicians were recently installed as mural panels along a stretch of North Main Street, marking the newly formed 'Blues Heritage Trail' by the Downtown Memphis Commission. In African Queen, Hunt displays his full powers as an artist, combining an angularity of line, high contrast color palette, heavy texture variations, and a found object in the form of a strand of beads to compose a picture of timeless beauty.
