Whitney Museum Showcases Minnie Evans's Visionary Art

Currently on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York is "The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans," featuring nearly one hundred of her paintings and drawings, running until January of the following year. Originally curated by Katherine Jentleson in Atlanta, the exhibition has been brought to New York by Barbara Haskell. Minnie Evans, who was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1892, began her artistic journey in 1935 after receiving a directive to draw following her grandmother Mary Croom Jones's death. Her vibrant works, characterized by symmetrical mandalas and floating heads, embody her dreams. Evans, who worked as a domestic servant and later as a gatekeeper at Airlie Gardens, was highlighted in a 1975 Whitney exhibition, making her the third Black woman to achieve this honor. The current show revisits her impactful legacy, supported by scholars like Jentleson, Kim Conaty, and María Elena Ortiz, who contributed to a monograph and the documentary "Minnie Evans: Draw or Die." Comparisons have been drawn between her art and that of Hilma af Klint and Alma Thomas, establishing her as a key figure in Afro-Surrealism.