Untitled

We continue our special month with masterpieces from the American Folk Art Museum in New York. Today's piece is included in the Self-Made: A Century of Inventing Artists exhibition, which is on view at the museum until September 13, 2026. Don't miss it while in New York!

Minnie Evans was an African American artist who worked in the United States from the 1940s to the 1980s. She was managing the admissions gate at Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, North Carolina, when she painted this work, in which three faces emerge from colorful azaleas and lush foliage. She completed the drawings of flowers and faces separately, then merged them into a kaleidoscopic landscape. The vibrant palette reflected her idea of heaven. She once mused, “We talk of heaven, we think everything is going to be white. But I believe we’re going to have the beautiful rainbow colors.”