Divine folk art.Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan Sister Gertrude Morgan (1900-1980) was a preacher, missionary, artist, musician, and poet who worked in New Orleans in the 1960s and '70s, notable primarily for her folk art. She was born in 1900 in Lafayette, Alabama, and moved to Columbus, Georgia at the age of eighteen. by William A. Fagaly, with essays by Jason Berry and Helen M. Shannon Foreword by Gerald C. Wertkin Rizzoli International Publications, March 2004 $35.00, ISB 0-847-92623-6 Folk art folk art, the art works of a culturally homogeneous people produced by artists without formal training. The forms of such works are generally developed into a tradition that is either cut off from or tenuously connected to the contemporary cultural mainstream. in America has yet to gain the attention of a mainstream audience in the ways that abstract or impressionism impressionism, in painting impressionism, in painting, late-19th-century French school that was generally characterized by the attempt to depict transitory visual impressions, often painted directly from nature, and by the use of pure, broken color to , or other schooled art forms have. And artist Sister Gertrude Morgan may not be as recognizable a name as, say, Elizabeth Catlett Elizabeth Catlett Mora (born April 15,1915) is an African American sculptress and printmaker. Catlett is best known for the black, expressionistic sculptures and prints she produced during the 1960s and 1970s, which are seen as politically charged. or Jacob Lawrence Jacob Lawrence (September 7, 1917 - June 9, 2000) was an African American painter; he was married to fellow artist Gwendolyn Knight. Life Lawrence is probably among the best-known twentieth century African American painters, a distinction also shared by Romare Bearden. . Among those familiar with the nuances of folk art and its imaginative creators, however, Sister Gertrude Morgan sits high in the canon of important self-taught artist. Tools of Her Ministry is the first comprehensive exhibition of the Alabama-born artist, Evangelist, musician and poet who "did not consider her paintings and decorated objects art but tools for teaching the word of God." in the convention of what is defined as folk art works influenced not by formal training but by desire and instinct, and based on cultural as well as regional traditions--the paintings of Sister Morgan reflect her religious convictions. Sister Gertrude Morgan began to paint in earnest when she was 56, although she remembered drawing with a stick as a young child. After she moved to New Orleans New Orleans (ôr`lēənz –lənz, ôrlēnz`), city (2006 pop. 187,525), coextensive with Orleans parish, SE La., between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain, 107 mi (172 km) by water from the river mouth; founded in 1939, Sister Morgan established an orphanage, and years later her artworks came about as a way of both supporting her Everlasting Gospel Mission and helping to spread the gospel. Sister Morgan fashioned her work from a variety of materials such as acrylic paints, ballpoint ink, crayon crayon, any drawing material available in stick form. The term includes charcoal, conte crayon, chalk, pastel, grease crayon, litho crayon, and children's wax colors. , oil, pencil and watercolor, painting on cardboard, plastic and scrap wood to create her interpretations of passages from the Old and New Testaments. Art historian William A. Fagley, who befriended Sister Morgan, and his collaborators detail the artist's life of 80 years in eloquent biographical essays. Tools of Her Ministry shows the strength that comes from the union of devotion, vision and voice. |
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