Minnie Evans, known for her small crayon drawings to large mixed-media works and collages, was born on December 12, 1892, in Long Creek, North Carolina. The following year, she and her mother relocated to live with her grandmother in Wilmington, North Carolina, where she ended her education at the sixth grade to sell oysters and clams door-to-door. In 1908, Evans, her mother, and her grandmother moved to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, and that year she met and married Julius Evans. She began working as a domestic at the Pembroke Park Estate in 1918 and was inspired to begin drawing after a spiritual epiphany in 1935; she did not resume art-making until about 1940. In 1948, she began working as a gatekeeper at Airlie Gardens, another property owned by the Pembroke family, until her retirement in 1974. While there, she was able to sell her drawings and paintings to visitors. Evans increased the size and scale of her works after visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and gained national recognition after being featured in the August 4, 1969, issue of Newsweek. She and her mother moved back to Wilmington in the late 1970s to live with one of her sons and his wife. Evans moved into a nursing home after the death of her mother in 1981 and continued to draw and paint until she died on December 16, 1987. The mayor of Greenville, North Carolina, declared May 14 “Minnie Evans Day” in 1994.
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References
Renn, Melissa. 2005. “Minnie Evans.” In Syncopated Rhythms: 20th Century African American Art from the George and Joyce Wein Collection, by Patricia Hill and Renn, 52–53. Exh. cat. Boston: Boston University Art Gallery.
Kahan, Mitchell. 1986. Heavenly Visions: The Art of Minnie Evans. Exh. cat. Raleigh: North Carolina Museum of Art.
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