Oct 07, 2010 - Sale 2224

Sale 2224 - Lot 48

Price Realized: $ 4,320
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
MINNIE EVANS (1892 - 1987)
Greenfield Lake.

Oil on canvas board, 1957. 305x406 mm; 12x16 inches. Signed and dated in ink, lower right.

Provenance: the collection of the artist; private collection, New York.

Greenfield Lake is an unusual painting that shows a seldom-seen side of Minnie Evans's work. Known for her surreal, visionary images in crayon and watercolor on paper, Evans painted this lush Henri Rousseau-like park scene in Wilmington, NC, where she had worked as a gatekeeper in Airlie Gardens since 1948.

We believe this is the first oil landscape by this important folk artist to come to auction. Jean Dubuffet collected Evans's work in the 1960s, which has been exhibited widely, including a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1975.