Minnie Evans
| Minnie Evans | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Minnie Eva Jones December 12, 1892 Long Creek, Pender County, North Carolina, United States |
| Died | December 16, 1987 (aged 95) |
| Nationality | American |
Minnie Eva Evans (December 12, 1892 – December 16, 1987) was an African American artist who worked in the United States from the 1940s to the 1980s. Evans used different media in her work, but started with using wax and crayon. She was inspired to start drawing due to visions and dreams that she had when she was a young girl. She is known as a southern folk artist and as a surrealist and visionary artist as well.
Evans (born Minnie Eva Jones) was born to Ella Jones on December 12, 1892 in Long Creek, Pender County, North Carolina. Ella was only thirteen years old at the time. Evans' biological father, George Moore, left after she was born. After Evans was only two months old, she and her mother moved to Wilmington, North Carolina to live with Evans' grandmother, Mary Croom Jones in 1893. Minnie Jones attended school until the sixth grade and in 1903, Minnie Jones, Ella, and Mary Croom Jones moved to Wrightsville Sound which was a town close to Wilmington. In Wrightsville, Ella Jones met her future husband, Joe Kelly, and they married in 1908. During this time, Jones worked as a "sounder" selling shellfish door to door. In 1908, one of Joe Kelly's daughter's from a previous marriage introduced Minnie Jones to Julius Caesar. Minnie Jones, who was sixteen at the time, married Julius (19) that same year. The couple had three sons, Elisha Dyer, David Barnes Evans, and George Sheldon Evans.
Beginning in 1916, Minnie Evans was employed as a domestic at the home of her husband's employer, Pembroke Jones, a wealthy industrialist. The Evans family lived on Jones's hunting estate, "Pembroke Park," known today as the subdivision Landfall. Pembroke Jones died in 1919 and his wife, Sadie Jones remarried Henry Walters. The couple moved nearby to the Arlie Estate which was left to Sadie Jones from Pembroke Jones. Evans continued to work from Sadie Jones and now Henry Walters, on the Arlie Estate. After Walters died, Sadie Jones decided to turn the Arlie Estate into gardens which later became one of the most famous gardens of the south. After Sadie Jones died, a man named Albert Corbet bought the property in 1947 and assigned Evans to be the gatekeeper and take admission from public visitors. She held this position for the rest of her life. She retired from her job as the gatekeeper when she was 82 years old in 1974.
Evans began drawing on Good Friday 1935, where she finished two drawings using pen and ink "dominated by concentric and semi-circles against a background of unidentifiable linear motifs". She heard a voice in her head that said ‘Why don't you draw or die?' After this, Evans did not resume drawing until 1940. She started using pencil and wax on paper for her beginning works and she later worked with oil paints and mixed media collages. Her subject matter were usually either biblical scenes or scenes from nature. Her influences included African, Caribbean, East India, Chinese, and Western cultures. Since she held the position as gatekeeper at the Arlie Gardens, she often used the gardens as her inspiration in her work to depict nature scenes.
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