Acclaimed American artist Minnie Evans (1892–1987) once described her drawings, filled with human, botanical, and animal forms, as emerging from “the lost world,” a reference to “the nations destroyed before the Flood.” Following the death of her grandmother in 1934, Evans experienced intensified visions, leading her to create a remarkable body of work. In 1975, she became one of the first Black artists to hold a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Despite her recognition during her lifetime, Evans has not been featured in a major exhibition since the 1990s.
In response to its growing collection of her work, The High Museum in Atlanta is organizing a nationally touring retrospective that assembles more than one hundred of Evans’s fantastical drawings, framing them within the context of her extraordinary life. The exhibition will present her work chronologically, starting with her spare, line-driven compositions from the 1930s and progressing to the colorful, complex pieces and lush, utopian mandalas of the 1960s. This exhibition and its accompanying catalogue will explore Evans’s place within broadened canons of Surrealism, examine the impact of significant historical events on her, and illustrate how her daily experiences—as a domestic worker and later as a gatekeeper at North Carolina’s Airlie Gardens—influenced her art alongside her extrasensory experiences. After its debut in Atlanta, the exhibition, titled The Lost World, will see Evans’s work return triumphantly to the Whitney in summer 2026.
