Untitled
Minnie Evans
Artwork
Untitled
1892-1987
Crayon, pen, graphite, and paint on paper cut-out mounted on paper
12 in x 9 in
Circa 1950
Label:
Born in Long Creek, North Carolina, Minnie Evans embraced her creative sensibility late in life, when in 1935 a divine voice told her to “draw or die.” From that moment on, Evans conscientiously produced her signature chromatic, mythical drawings, sometimes executing as many as seven in one day as a form of religious discipline. Characterized by hypnotic, repetitious patterns replete with facial features, flora, and fauna, she rarely diverged from these symmetrical abstractions; however, no two are identical. Evans refused to provide interpretation of her work, readily acknowledging her own mystification at its process and portent: “They are just as strange to me as they are to anybody else.”
Now On View:
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY
As Published In:
Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, 2018
As Exhibited In:
The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, November 14, 2025–April 19, 2026, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, August 22, 2026–January 10, 2027
Imaginary Landscapes: Stories from the American South, The Bascomb: A Center for the Visual Arts, Highlands, NC, May 14–August 27, 2022
Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, June 30–October 23, 2018, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, November 16, 2018–January 20, 2019, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV, March 2–June 30, 2019, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN, July 28–October 13, 2019, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC, January 1–August 9, 2020, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC, September 7–December 18, 2020, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA, February 6–July 18, 2021
Southern Roots: Selections of Self-Taught Art from the Johnson Collection, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, November 17, 2016–March 3, 2017
Beyond the Harlem Renaissance, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, February 20–April 2, 2014
Religious Art of the American South: Sacred Spaces and Gathering Places, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, December 5, 2013–January 30, 2014
Life is But a Dream: Explorations of Surreality in Southern Art, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, September 19–November 27, 2013
Walkers with the Dawn: A Century of African-American Art in the South, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, May 13–July 21, 2011
About This Artist