Minnie Evans
1892-1987 (USA)
THE BOLD OPUS OF MINNIE EVANS WAS INFORMED BY HER LOVE OF FLORA AND FAUNA AND A PROFOUND CHRISTIAN BELIEF SYSTEM. EVANS, WHO ACKNOWLEDGED TRINIDADIAN AND SLAVE DESCENT, WAS GATEKEEPER AT AIRLIE GARDENS IN NORTH CAROLINA: A PHYSICAL SURROUNDING WHICH INFLUENCED THE PARADISAL LANDSCAPES WHICH SHE COMMENCED IN MIDDLE AGE. EVANS EXPLAINED THE ILLUSTRATIONS - WHICH WERE DOTTED WITH MAGICAL FACES, BENEVOLENT ANGELS AND MYSTICAL BEASTS - AS THE VISIONS SHE HAD EXPERIENCED SINCE CHILDHOOD. TODAY THEY ARE CONSIDERED AMONG THE 20TH CENTURY’S MOST IMPORTANT BLACK VISIONARY ARTWORKS. EVANS WAS MOST RECENTLY INCLUDED IN THE BOTANICAL MIND (2020) AT CAMDEN ART CENTRE AND IS IN COLLECTIONS AT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM AND THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART IN NEW YORK.
The Doors of Perception, Curated by Javier Téllez in collaboration with the Outsider Art Fair, Frieze New York (New York) 2019
Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia (Athens) 2018
Southern Accent: Seeking the American South in Contemporary Art, The Speed Art Museum (Louisville) 2017
Top Drawer, High Museum of Art (Atlanta) 2014
When the Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the American South, The Studio Museum in Harlem (New York) 2014
Art's Outer Circles: Outsiders, Naive and Self-Taught Artists, Haifa Museum of Art (Haifa, Israel) 2013
Fresh Flowers, Sherman Gallery at Boston University (Boston) 2011
Ascension II: A Legacy of Self-Taught African-American Artists of North Carolina, Diggs Gallery at Winston-Salem University (Winston-Salem) 2008
Golden Blessings of Old Age: Out of the Mouths of Babes, American Visionary Art Museum (Baltimore) 2003
Making Choices, Museum of Modern Art (New York) 2000
Minnie Evans: Five Decades of Paintings and Drawings, Luise Ross Gallery (New York) 1998
Minnie Evans, Artist, traveling exhibition, High Museum of Art (Atlanta) 1993
Heavenly Visions: The Art of Minnie Evans, North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh) 1986
Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) 1975
Little Gallery (Wilmington) 1961
Thomas J. Lax, When the Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the American South, exhibition catalogue, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 2014
Charles M. Lovell & Edwin Hester, Minnie Evans: Artist, Wellington B. Gray Gallery, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina, 1993
Mitchell Kahan, Heavenly Visions: The Art of Minnie Evans, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1986
Nina Howell Starr, Minnie Evans, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1975
