Bidspirit auction | ALBERTA KINSEY (OHIO/LOUISIANA, 1875-1952): COTTON

ALBERTA KINSEY (OHIO/LOUISIANA, 1875-1952): COTTON PICKERS - Oil on canvas, signed lower left. View of African Americans picking cotton. In its original, simple wooden frame. 21” high, 25” wide (canvas), 25” high, 28.25” wide (frame). Kinsey grew up in a Quaker family in the Miami County, Ohio town of West Milton. She trained at the Cincinnati Art Academy and the Chicago Art School. She moved south in 1918, settling in the French Quarter of New Orleans. In her Toulouse Street studio, she spent decades painting the buildings, streets, alleys, and especially patios as part of a growing art colony. She made frequent trips to Natchitoches Parish where she was a visitor to Melrose, the Cane River plantation of John and Cammie Hampton. It was there that she became friends with, and provided significant inspiration to folk artist Clementine Hunter (1887-1988). It is likely that this painting depicts the cotton fields at Melrose and was painted during one of Kinsey's visits. Provenance: descended in a West Milton, Ohio family. Condition: Needs cleaned, some craquelure, a few flakes lost from the sky, and a 1” long area of loss on one of the outbuildings.