Walter Evans, born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1943, was the youngest of the five children of Willie Mae Rakestraw Evans and Fred Benjamin Evans. The family later moved to Beaufort, South Carolina. Walter spent his boyhood days in Savannah and Beaufort, towns where history and tradition were their life breath. The importance of family tradition and heritage in addition to a well founded education in the Evans family was in keeping with that of the southern African American community. Walter Evans began early on to assume a responsibility for knowledge of his ancestry and the meaning of his cultural heritage.
This tightly woven fabric of cultural tradition, the social and psychological imperative to obtain freedom (within the land of the free) and the recognition of knowledge as a liberator was the backdrop of the African American south and duly prepared Evans for the tasks before him.
It has been imperative for this collector that the art works portray or express African or African American historical ideology whether it be a portrait, a landscape or mythological imagery. The process of collecting for Evans has become a veritable fitting together of puzzle pieces albeit recontruction of African American cultural history both for his personal understanding of the creative impulse and his sense of the necessity of visual and literary artistic expression as a reflection of our social history.
He has responded to the visual arts as a griot, a keeper of the culture, and here he remains steadfast.
left: Carl Owens, Malika and Maisha, 1980, (collector's daugthers), Pastel on board
right: Carl Owens, Portrait of Mrs. Willie Mae Rakestraw Evans (collector's mother), 1982, Pastel on board
This page was created by Veronica Harris