Bio

Sister Gertrude Morgan (April 7, 1900 – July 8, 1980) was a self-taught African American artist, musician, poet and preacher. Born in LaFayette, Alabama, she relocated to New Orleans in 1939, where she lived and worked until her death in 1980. Sister Morgan achieved critical acclaim during her lifetime for her folk art paintings. Her work has been included in many groundbreaking exhibitions of visionary and folk art from the 1970s onwards.

CV

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2021

The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA

2019

New Arrivals Fall 2019: Contemporary, Haitian & Outsider Art, ZQ Art Gallery, Richmond, VA

2018

Outliers and American Vanguard Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Outliers and American Vanguard Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

2016

Measurably Long Kool, Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia, PA

2013

Great and Mighty Things: Outsider Art from the Sheldon and Jill Bonovitz Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA

Ashe to Amen: African Americans and Biblical Imagery, Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture, Baltimore, MD

2010

The Museum of Everything, Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli, Turin, IT

2004

Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan, American Folk Art Museum, New York; traveling to: New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA

The Tools of Her Ministry: The Art of Sister Gertrude Morgan, American Folk Art Museum, NOMA, The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art in Chicago, CHicago, IL

1989

Black History, Black Vision: The Visionary Image in Texas, Archer M. Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas, Austin, TX

1982

Black Folk Art in America, 1930 – 1980, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

1973

Louisiana Folk Paintings, American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY

1970

Arts and Science Centre, Baton Rouge, LA

COLLECTIONS

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY

High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA

Museum of Everything, London, UK

New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA

Odgen Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA