The Whitney Museum of American Art is presenting a comprehensive retrospective of the work of Minnie Evans, titled The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans, nearly 50 years after the artist became one of the first Black artists to have a solo show at the museum. The exhibition gathers nearly 100 pieces covering the entirety of Evans's artistic output.
A Divine Calling
Born in 1892, Evans created her first artwork in 1935, just a few days after the death of her grandmother, when she drew two pen and ink pieces titled My Very First and My Second. Made on scraps of paper, they are obsessive and maze-like, composed mainly of abstract jags and spirals, with closer inspection revealing forms such as a rainbow and sun, a field of crosses, and a canoe-like vessel with three passengers.
According to Whitney curator Barbara Haskell, after signing and dating these pieces, Evans did not create another work for five years, until she had a chance encounter with them as a sign to continue. “She painted all the time as a child, but then when she got married, she stopped making art,” said Haskell. “And then, in 1940, she took it up again.”
From there, Evans created with fervor, fitting art-making into quiet moments during her employment as a housekeeper at the estate of financier Pembroke Jones, and later as a gatekeeper at Airlie Gardens. What propelled her forward was a religious calling. “She felt that she saw God speaking to her from behind a wreath, three times, like this three-part conversion, and the third time she heard Him tell her to paint or die. So she had this divine calling that she felt she was answering,” Haskell said.
Dense and Inspired Works
Evans's art is dense and inspired: forms repeat in dazzling arrays, beings are decorated with intricate detail, and mandala-like faces feature endless curves and crevices for her exacting use of color. Biblical imagery is frequently found, along with lush, tropical-feeling depictions of greenery and flowers. Her pieces tend toward playful, 2D melanges bound up in symmetries radiating from a central axis, though some more naturalistic pieces stand out, such as 1955's Temple by the Sea or her 1954 depiction of the Airlie oak.
“They're very dense, and there's this kind of mixture of ecstasy and containment that's very mesmerizing,” said Haskell. “You look at the pieces and you feel like you're drawn into this forest of images that surround you.”
While creating, Evans staged makeshift shows by hanging finished pieces on Airlie Garden's front gates. Although reluctant to formally exhibit, she had her first show in 1961 at the Little Gallery in Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1962, photographer and art historian Nina Howell Starr sought her out, becoming her friend and de facto publicist for a quarter century. Starr helped Evans enter the New York City art world, arranging her first exhibition there in 1966, leading to a major exhibition at the Whitney in 1975 titled The Lost World.
A Lost World Vision
The show's title was apt, as Evans saw herself depicting a vision of a long past, glorious realm. “Evans would talk about how she was creating this vision of a lost world, a paradise that had been destroyed by the great flood,” said Haskell. “She was recreating images of that world and allowing us to have access to it. It was also, in a sense, a world that would come into being.”
Given that Evans was born in the south during the Jim Crow era, many interpreters have read her work through the lens of racial oppression. But Haskell argues for an interpretation grounded in religion. “There are a lot of images of eyes that are nestled in the foliage in her work, and many commentators see those eyes as references to the surveillance that she must have felt as a Black woman in the south,” said Haskell. “But I see them more as the eyes of God – she was definitely influenced by the Bible, and she had it right there with her when she took admissions at the gate. The amazing thing about her work is that it offers the ability for both interpretations to be true.”
In the years since Evans's death in 1987, her reputation has grown. The past year has seen substantial shows at the High Museum in Atlanta and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. “The trajectory of her public acceptance has just grown,” said Haskell. “Her reputation has exploded.”
The Whitney's retrospective offers visitors a chance to enter fully into Evans's world, a place of good feelings, grandiose luminosity, and tranquillity. As Haskell puts it, “she's this remarkable artist who created an entire world of harmony and transcendency, even amid disquiet and unease. I hope people find solace in this show and hold the light in her wonder.” The Lost World: The Art of Minnie Evans is on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art from 22 August to 10 January 2027.
