In her fifties, she began to sell her paintings, which soon gained local and national attention for their complexity in depicting Black Southern life in the early 20th century.

In 2013, director Robert Wilson presented a new opera about her, entitled Zinnias: the Life of Clementine Hunter, at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

[2] Clementine Hunter was born in late December [3] at Hidden Hill Plantation, near Cloutierville in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana.

[4][5] She was the first of seven children[6] born to Janvier Reuben (though Clementine Hunter called him John[5]) and Mary Antoinette Adams.

[7] Hunter's maternal grandmother Idole, an enslaved Black and Native American woman, was born in Virginia and brought to Louisiana.

[5] Hunter's paternal grandfather, who was of mixed African, French, and Irish descent, traded horses during the Civil War,[7][6] but died before she was born.

[5][6] Hunter knew her paternal grandmother well, a Black and Native American woman who she called MéMé (pronounced May–May).

[7][10] She was known for her talent adapting traditional Creole recipes, sewing intricate clothes and dolls, and tending to the house's vegetable garden.

[5][6] She was now the sole financial provider for the family, working full time, while caring for Emmanuel, and painting late at night.

[5] During this period in the early 1940s, Hunter adopted Mary Francis LaCour, an eleven-year-old girl whose parents couldn't care for her.

Hunter is described as a memory painter because she documented Black Southern life in the Cane River Valley in the early 20th century.

[3][14] Numerous artists and writers visited, including Lyle Saxon, Roark Bradford, Alexander Woollcott, Rose Franken, Gwen Bristow, and Richard Avedon.

[21] In 1949, Clementine Hunter's first show in the Cane River Valley was hosted by Mignon in the upstairs area of the African House.

[6][7] In 1955, Hunter and François Mignon collaborated to produce the series of paneled murals that depict the history of the Cane River Valley and reflect the artist's life.

[23] Hunter lived in communities of Black sharecroppers and tenant farmers where she learned to sew clothes and household items.

[24] James Register also recorded Clementine Hunter's exceptional skill at making fringe in an article in the Natchitoches Times in 1972.

Hunter's quilts and tapestries are clear examples of her artistic talent before she began painting, and feature subjects and her color palette that are central to the majority of her artwork.

[6][27][26] A director of the Museum of American Folk Art in New York City described Hunter as "the most celebrated of all Southern contemporary painters.

In February 1985, the museum hosted A New Orleans Salute to Clementine Hunter's Centennial, an exhibit in honor of her one-hundredth birthday.

Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr.[30] Radcliffe College included Hunter in its Black Women Oral History Project, published in 1980.

[8] An interview with Hunter is part of the Black Women Oral History Project records, 1976–1997, housed at Harvard University, Radcliffe Institute, Schlesinger Library.

In 2013, composer Robert Wilson presented a new opera about her: Zinnias: the Life of Clementine Hunter, at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

[35] The film celebrates Hunter's life and artwork through the lens of photographs, oral histories, and the newly resorted African House Murals.

"[36] According to Smithsonian American Art curator Tuliza Fleming, the 22 works by Hunter is the largest collection by a single artist at the museum.

[5][10] Toye likely began forging Hunter paintings again in 1999, selling them or using them as a form of payment for doctor's bills or as collateral for a bank loan until the mid-2000s.

[5] Some noted Hunter collectors caught on his scheme, such as Robert Ryan who returned some paintings bought from Lucky, demanding a refund.

[38] In 2005, Tom Whitehead, Shelby Gilley, and Jack Brittain hired Frank Preusser, an art authentication expert, to investigate these forgeries.

[5] The team included Joseph Barabe of McCrone Associates, a scientific analysis company and James Martin a forensic art expert of Orion Analytical.

[10][16][38] Toye, who was accused of selling forged paintings three times over the course of four decades, pleaded guilty in federal court on June 6, 2011.

[5] Robert Lucky Jr. was charged with mail fraud and pled guilty, was sentenced to twenty-five months in prison and a $326,893 fine.