Details
MINNIE EVANS (1892-1987)
Untitled
signed and dated 'Minnie Evans/65' (upper right)
oil and metalic paint on canvas board
16 x 12 in. (40.6 x 30.5 cm)
Painted in 1965.
Provenance
The family of the artist.
Private collection, acquired from the above, late 1960s.
By descent to the present owners from the above, 1985.
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Lot Essay

Raised in Wilmington, North Carolina, Minnie Evans (1892–1987) grew up in the city’s African American community and was profoundly influenced by her dreams and visions from an early age. While raising her three sons, she began creating her first works in the 1930s, drawing in ink on paper. In 1948, Evans became the gatekeeper at Airlie Gardens, and the lush, botanical surroundings soon began to seep into her works. Her compositions grew increasingly intricate, incorporating crayon and paint to depict her visionary revelations of deities, angels, demons, and fantastical hybrid plants and animals rendered in dense, symmetrical arrangements. As she famously explained, “I have no imagination. I never plan a drawing, they just happen. In a dream it was shown to me what I have to do, of paintings" (Minnie Evans quoted in Nina Howell Starr, "The Lost World of Minnie Evans," The Bennington Review, vol. 111, no. 2 (Summer 1969) p. 41).

Untitled exemplifies these qualities, presenting a vibrant interplay of plants and ornamental patterns likely inspired by Airlie Gardens. The work’s surreal, otherworldly character aligns closely with Evans’s mature style.

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