Minnie Evans

1892-1987

A descendant of slaves from Trinidad, Minnie Evans was brought as an infant to live with her grandmother in Wilmington, North Carolina. Too poor to continue with school beyond the sixth grade, she worked as a hawker of seafood at Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach both in North Carolina and as a domestic servant. In 1948, she became a gatekeeper at Airlie Gardens. Driven by a need to record her dreams, Evans began to draw and paint at the age of 43. Her first piece of artwork, drawn on a scrap of paper bag, was titled “My Very First,” and she made a second one a day later. It was not until five years later, when she rediscovered the two original drawings tucked inside some magazines, that she began to create in earnest. Evans painted her early works on US Coast Guard stationery, but in later years she worked with more precision with ink, graphite, wax crayon, watercolor and oil on canvas, board and paper. The daily experience of working at the lush floral Airlie Gardens had an impact on her style: her paintings and drawings depict colorful organic flowing forms, with faces and flowers emerging from symmetrical patterns and complex designs. The colors in her later paintings were even more lush and vibrant, with the compositions more complex and on a larger scale.  ¹