She said, “Sometimes I want to get off in the garden to talk with God. I have the blooms, and when the blooms are gone, I love to watch the green. God dressed the world in green.” This piece depicts a mythical creature with eyes, a nose, and a mouth located on a strong central axis. The top of the figure’s head resembles a butterfly, and petal-like forms sprout from the head and neck. Below the figure’s mouth, a sun sets above a blue and green sea on the creature’s chin. Green forms marked by scrolling black lines occupy the figure’s shoulders, while a red-orange and yellow flower blooms in the center bottom portion of the drawing. The effect is mysterious and otherworldly, a product of the artist’s dreams. Works of art by Evans are included in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This piece was sold to Bud Baker by the St. John’s Museum, now the Cameron Art Museum, in Wilmington. When it enters the Reynolda collection, it will join other pieces by self-taught African-American artists, such as Horace Pippin’s The Whipping and Thornton Dial’s Crying in the Jungle, Crying for Jobs. It will also increase the Museum’s holdings of work by African-American women, currently limited to pieces by Betye Saar and Lorna Simpson. The Museum’s Deputy Director Phil Archer expressed abundant enthusiasm for both gifts. “Sargent’s treatment of Harriet Hemenway is a sterling portrait, and it contrasts in fascinating ways with the painting of the Marchesa; Harriet strikes us as direct, sober, and straightforward where the Marchesa is flamboyant, even operatic.” He added, “and the Minnie Evans packs an enormous punch for its diminutive scale, hinting at a mysterious cosmology. Visionary artists like Evans see constellations where the rest of us see only stars, and she developed the technique to reveal her visions to everyone.”
Minnie Evans, Untitled, 1948, ink and crayon on paper, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Leslie Baker
12