Minnie Evans

Minnie Eva Evans (December 12, 1892 – December 16, 1987) Evans, like other children her age, had an active imagination at all hours of the day. In her case, the whimsical visions she received would keep her up throughout the night, so that she hardly ever got any rest. This lack of sleep, together with her family's need for her assistance, caused her schooling to end at the age of 13. Minnie 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 attended St. Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. In 1908, one of Joe Kelly's daughter's from a previous marriage introduced Minnie Jones to Julius Caesar Evans. Minnie Jones, who was 16 years old at the time, married Julius (aged 19) that same year.

Beginning in 1916, Minnie Evans was employed as a domestic worker at the home of her husband's employer, Pembroke Jones, a wealthy industrialist. These two pieces were titled "My Very First" and "My Second", respectively. From a young age, Minnie depicts her experiences of receiving visions and viewing mythical creatures that acquaintances could not. Inevitably, these visions circulated throughout her life as she started to hear and see more into her early adulthood. She heard a voice in her head that said: "Why don't you draw or die?" Her influences included African, Caribbean, East India, Chinese, and Western cultures.

Evans first started selling her work at the Airlie Gardens by hanging her pieces on the front gate of the gardens. She would often give her pieces away to visitors. Soon she became known throughout the south and visitors would come to the gardens just to see her work.

In 1962, Evans met photographer, folk art specialist, and art historian, Nina Howell Starr. Starr, an artist herself (photographer), knew of Evans' work in 1961 and wanted to meet the artist in person. In 1966, Starr arranged for Evans' first New York exhibit at the Church of Epiphany and Clements Episcopal Church. which was a self-portrait on the cover of a scrapbook in 1981.

Evans died in Wilmington, North Carolina, on December 16, 1987, at the age of 95, "Minnie Evans Day" was proclaimed on May 14, 1994, in Greenville, North Carolina. The title of the documentary comes from a quote by Evans herself, in which she says: "God has sent me an angel that stands by me. [It] stands with me and directs me what to do."

In 2025 Evans was the subject of a Museum of Fine Arts Boston exhibition “The Visionary Art of Minnie Evans,” as well as an exhibition at the High Museum of Art, “The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans.” Evans is also the subject of Minnie Evans: Draw or Die, a documentary by filmmaker Linda Royal.

Famous works

Inspiration, style, and technique Evans began to draw and paint at the age of 43, creating her first pieces of artwork on a scrap of paper bag. She 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. She also favored the use of Crayola crayons as she said “they are the best.” Five years later she decided to really dedicate herself to recording her dreams through art. Filled with Edens and heavens, the landscape of her dream world is principally free of the threat of hell. She painted her early works on US Coast guard stationery and later worked with more precision, using ink, graphite, wax crayon, watercolor and oil on canvas, board and paper.

Evans drawings were inspired by her dreams and filled with many colors inspired by her work at Airlie Gardens. Minnie Evans was raised as a Christian. She 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. Her designs are complex, with elements recalling the art of China and the Caribbean combined with more Western themes. The central motif in many pieces is a human face surrounded by plant and animal forms. The eyes, which Evans equated with God's omniscience, are central to each figure, often three eyes were depicted and frontal faces with concealed lips. Symmetry was also a common theme in Evans' work A friend of hers said: "I really feel like Minnie has powers that not many of us have. I'm sure she has." After handing her these drawings to a mysterious prophet, Evans was told that they foreshadowed the current global conflict, World War II. Madame Tula later instructed Evans to make a new painting featuring the war's conclusion. Days later, Evans painted Invasion Picture, capturing total destruction, bombs, and a figure of Fu Manchu.

Her work is highly collected by many museums and collectors all across the world. Many of her works can be viewed at the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, the American Folk Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the High Museum of Art.

A review of a 2017 exhibit notes the contrast between Evans' later works -- "increasingly sophisticated" faces and greater "familiarity with nature"—with her first drawings between 1935 and 1940, which "indicate her innate genius and awareness, in the raw and in transition."

Publications Art exhibition catalogues, in ascending order by date: