Queena Stovall | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Emma Serena Dillard December 20, 1887 Amherst County, Virginia |
| Died | June 27, 1980 (aged 92) |
| Nationality | American |
| Known for | Painting |
| Movement | American Folk Art |
Queena Stovall (20 December 1887 – 27 June 1980) was an American folk artist. Sometimes called "The Grandma Moses of Virginia," she is famous for depicting everyday events in the lives of both white and black families in rural settings.[1]
Early life
Born Emma Serena Dillard in Amherst County, Virginia, she received the nickname “Queena” from her grandmother because of the way young children would pronounce "Serena". She married Jonathan Breckenridge Stovall, a traveling salesman, in 1908 and the pair had nine children. The family lived in Lynchburg, Virginia during the fall and winter and on a farm near Elon, Virginia during the spring and summer.[2]
Career
After her brother persuaded her to take an art class at nearby Randolph-Macon Woman’s College in Lynchburg, Stovall began painting at age sixty-two. Her instructor there was Spanish artist Pierre Daura, who encouraged her to stop taking classes and develop her own unique style.[2]
Stovall's career spanned less than two decades, and she produced forty-nine paintings.[1] Her art depicted scenes of ordinary rural life such as crop harvests, animal butchering, funerals, jarring for the winter, baptisms, cooking, and livestock and estate auctions. Stovall combined bright colors with attentive details, and would use figures out of magazines and advertisements to understand the composition needed for her paintings. Her first solo exhibition was at the Lynchburg Art Center in 1956. Stovall continued to paint until her health started to decline in the late 1960s.[2]
Legacy
Stovall's work is currently found in family collections, Virginia-area museums such as the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and other museums such as the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York.[3] The Daura Gallery at the University of Lynchburg holds the largest public collection of Stovall’s work.[1]
Exhibitions and Features
- An exhibition, "Queena Stovall, Artist of the Blue Ridge Piedmont," was mounted in 1974–1975 and traveled to Lynchburg College, in Lynchburg, Virginia, October 6–25, 1974; to the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Williamsburg, Virginia, January–March, 1975; and to the New York State Historical Association, Cooperstown, New York, April–September, 1975.[2]
- Stovall's paintings were shown at the 1982 World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee[1]
- Stovall's paintings were shown in 1988 at the United States Embassy in Paris, France.[1]
- Stovall's paintings were featured in the 1994 exhibition “Grandma Moses’ Southern Sisters: Queena Stovall and Clementine Hunter” at the Theatre Art Galleries in High Point, North Carolina.[4]
- A major exhibition of Stovall's work, featuring 44 of her 49 paintings and titled "Inside Looking Out, The Art of Queena Stovall," was mounted by curators at the Daura Gallery in 2018 and traveled to the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Virginia.[5]
- Stovall was featured in the 2019 exhibit Memory Painting: Harriet French Turner and Queena Stovall at the Taubman Museum of Art.[3]
Other Media
- The 1983 film “Queena Stovall: Life’s Narrow Space” was produced by Jack Ofield.[6]
- Stovall's work was featured the book "The Art of Queena Stovall: Images of Country Life (American Material Culture and Folklife" by Claudine Weatherford in 1986[7]
- In conjunction with the exhibit "Inside Looking Out, the Art of Queena Stovall," Daura Gallery curators Dcompiled a wrote a book with the same title.[8]
Cultural
- In 2010 Stovall was posthumously honored as one of the Library of Virginia's "Virginia Women in History" for her contributions to folk art.[9]
- In 2017 the Virginia Department of Historic Resources approved a historic marker in her honor, to be erected near the farm where she spent 35 years of her life, the Wigwam.[10] It was erected in March, 2018.[1]
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 Schkloven, Emma. "'She'll be forever with us': Amherst County native Queena Stovall subject of exhibit, new book, historical marker". NewsAdvance.com. Retrieved Feb 14, 2019.
- 1 2 3 4 "Queena Stovall-A Southern Memory Painter". Lynchburg Museum System. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
- 1 2 "Memory Painting: Harriet French Turner and Queena Stovall". Taubman Museum of Art. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
- ↑ Sellen, Betty-Carol (2016-01-20). Self-taught, outsider and folk art : a guide to American artists, locations and resources (Third ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina. ISBN 9780786475858. OCLC 920733479.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ↑ "Email - LAST CHANCE to see Inside Looking Out: The Art of Queena Stovall - Virginia Historical Society". give.virginiahistory.org. Retrieved Feb 14, 2019.
- ↑ "Life's Narrow Space | Folkstreams". www.folkstreams.net. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
- ↑ Weatherford, Claudine, 1945- (1986). The art of Queena Stovall : images of country life. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press. ISBN 0835717658. OCLC 13794109.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ↑ "Daura Gallery releases book about artist Queena Stovall, sponsors highway marker". University of Lynchburg. 2018-03-01. Retrieved 2019-11-01.
- ↑ "Virginia Women in History: Queena Stovall". Library of Virginia. Retrieved 4 March 2015.
- ↑ Schaedel, Sydney. "New historic highway marker to honor local artist". Retrieved 6 February 2018.
Further reading
- Jones, Louis C.; Jones, Agnes Halsey (1974). Queena Stovall, Artist of the Blue Ridge Piedmont: An Exhibition. New York State Historical Association..