Description
What happens when an artist spends decades outside the art world, creating work in near obscurity and not because of a lack of talent? For years, Minnie Evans worked as a ticket taker at a garden in Wilmington, North Carolina, while also secretly making drawings and paintings that came to her in spiritual visions. Evans’ great-grandson Wayne Evans, MoMA associate curator Alexandra Adams, and host Naeem Douglas explore the self-taught artist’s journey from obscurity to the world’s largest museums.
This is episode 4 of MoMA’s new podcast “The Secret Lives of Artists,” which tells the stories you don’t know about the artists you think you do. Each concise episode explores the secret talents and obsessive pursuits of some of our favorite modern artists. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
0:00 - Opening
1:25 - Theme Music and Introduction
2:07 - Growing up in Wilmington
3:10 - Wilmington Massacre
4:03 - Airlie Gardens
5:19 - Her first drawings
6:56 - Art, Faith, and Divine Inspiration
9:42 - The Secret (Art) Gets Out
11:59 - From Wilmington to New York City
13:32 - The Legacy of Minnie Evans
Portrait of American artist Minnie Evans (1892 - 1987) as she poses in Airlie Gardens, Wilmington, North Carolina, circa 1962. (Photo by Nina Howell Starr/Photo Researchers History/Getty Images). Contains an excerpt from The Angel That Stands By Me (1983), directed by Allie Light and Irving Saraf.
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The comments and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speaker alone, and do not represent the views of The Museum of Modern Art, its personnel, or any artist.
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