39 Facts About Minnie Evans

Minnie Eva Evans was an African-American artist who worked in the United States from the 1940s to the 1980s.

Minnie Evans was inspired to start drawing due to visions and dreams that she had all throughout her life, starting when she was a young girl.

Minnie Evans is known as a southern folk artist and outsider artist, as well as a surrealist and visionary artist.

When Minnie Evans was two months old, she and her mother moved to Wilmington, North Carolina, to live with her maternal grandmother, Mary Croom Jones in 1893.

Minnie Evans attended school until the sixth grade and in 1903, she, Ella, and Mary Croom Jones moved to Wrightsville Sound, a town close to Wilmington.

Minnie Evans attended St Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina.

Minnie Evans believed her to be going crazy from the art she was creating.

The Minnie Evans family lived on Jones's hunting estate, "Pembroke Park", known today as the subdivision Landfall.

Minnie Evans continued to work for Sadie Jones and now Henry Walters, on the Airlie Estate.

Minnie Evans held this position for the rest of her life.

Minnie Evans retired from her job as the gatekeeper when she was 82 years old in 1974.

Minnie Evans began drawing on Good Friday 1935, when she finished two drawings using pen and ink "dominated by concentric and semi-circles against a background of unidentifiable linear motifs".

From a young age, Minnie Evans depicts her experiences of receiving visions and viewing mythical creatures that acquaintances could not.

Minnie Evans started using pencil and wax on paper for her beginning works and she later worked with oil paints and mixed media collages.

Minnie Evans's influences included African, Caribbean, East India, Chinese, and Western cultures.

Minnie Evans first started selling her work at the Airlie Gardens by hanging her pieces on the front gate of the gardens.

In 1962, Minnie Evans met photographer, folk art specialist, and art historian, Nina Howell Starr.

Starr would go on to represent Minnie Evans and publicize her work for the next 25 years.

Minnie Evans originally sold her first paintings for 50 cents apiece.

Starr encouraged Minnie Evans to sell her paintings for better prices and assisted Minnie Evans throughout her career.

Minnie Evans felt her work was too personal to share with the public which held her from releasing anything until 1961 when she had her first major art exhibition at The Little Gallery in Wilmington, now known as St John's Museum.

At first, Minnie Evans was wary to trust Starr with her work, but they gained a mutual respect for each other.

Minnie Evans guided her in the art world by making her sign and date her pieces.

Minnie Evans had many other exhibitions in New York as well.

Minnie Evans created "one of the most powerful works of art", which was a self-portrait on the cover of a scrapbook in 1981.

Minnie Evans died in Wilmington, North Carolina, on December 16,1987, at the age of 95, leaving more than 400 artworks to the St Johns Museum of Art in Wilmington.

Along the path, colored cement has pressed flowers and plants that Minnie Evans used in her paintings.

Children's art that Minnie Evans inspired was transformed into 95 stepping stones, each for a year of her life.

Minnie Evans began to draw and paint at the age of 43, creating her first pieces of artwork on a scrap of paper bag.

Minnie Evans was known to free-hand her drawings from left to right.

Minnie Evans was notorious for drawing with anything on hand, including discarded window shades, book bindings, scrap paper.

Minnie Evans painted her early works on US Coast guard stationery and later worked with more precision, using ink, graphite, wax crayon, watercolour and oil on canvas, board and paper.

Minnie Evans drawings were inspired by her dreams and filled with many colors inspired by her work at Airlie Gardens.

Minnie Evans had this recurring dream that Abraham Prophets were carrying and throwing her around to a Cemetery in Wilmington where union soldiers who fought in the Civil War were buried.

Minnie Evans's designs are complex, with elements recalling the art of China and the Caribbean combined with more Western themes.

The eyes, which Minnie Evans equated with God's omniscience, are central to each figure, often three eyes were depicted and frontal faces with concealed lips.

Minnie Evans's drawing became compulsive, and her friends and family became worried that she was losing her mind.

Madame Tula later instructed Minnie Evans to make a new painting featuring the war's conclusion.

Days later, Minnie Evans painted Invasion Picture, capturing total destruction, bombs, and a figure of Fu Manchu.