Painting Dreams: Minnie Evans, Visionary Artist

by Mary E. Lyons

An introduction to the life of Minnie Evans explains how she began, at age forty-three, to draw the strange figures that had haunted her dreams all her life and describes the restrictions that were placed upon her ambitions as an African-American artist.

Genres: Art, African American, Biography

48 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1996

About the author

Mary E. Lyons, a former teacher and librarian, became a full-time writer in 1993. She is the author of nineteen books for young readers published by Scribner, Atheneum, Henry Holt, Houghton Mifflin and Oxford University Press.

Born and raised in the American South, Mary Lyons lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her husband, Paul. Her publications for adults include The Blue Ridge Tunnel: A Remarkable Engineering Feat in Antebellum Virginia (History Press, 2014), The Virginia Blue Ridge Railroad (History Press, 2015), and Slave Labor on Virginia’s Blue Ridge Railroad (History Press, 2020).

Reviews

[Peacegal · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was absolutely blown away by this book about a poverty-stricken, middle-aged African-American woman who one day began to create amazing art. Evans had no formal art training or exposure to the art world, but she felt compelled to illustrate the fantastic dreams and waking visions she had experienced since childhood. The result is amazingly symmetrical, surrealist imagery.

My only gripe with this book is that it should have been printed in a larger format, to allow the paintings to really shine.

[Renee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I only just learned about Minie Evans through researching black artists for a series of art projects I'm doing at the library on black artists, but I was absolutely blown away by her work. I don't think I'll be able to teach a direct lesson on technique or style because her vision was so personal, haunting, and unique. I've never seen art like this. It makes sense that the major people promoting her work did it for free because they just wanted the world to know about Minnie Evans.

Mary E Lyons writes wonderful biographies, full of context, dialogue taken directly from interviews, newspaper articles and reviews, tons of photographs and samples of artwork, and a complete bibliography. First learned about her through her fabulous biography of black outsider artist Bill Traylor, and will definitely be reading more of her work after two knockout hits.

[Diana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a tiny little book, simply written, possibly intended for children. I was looking for something in the gift shop at Airlie Garden that would tell me a little about the artist whose work inspired the amazing bottle chapel, and this fit the bill, plus had gorgeous plates of a number of Evans' drawings.