b. 1942 d. 2008
Site Affiliation: L.V. Hull Home & Studio
The self-proclaimed “Unusual Artist” Ms. L.V. Hull merged artmaking and the Southern art of “visiting” to transform her Kosciusko, Mississippi home into a beacon of creativity that attracted visitors from around the world.
Hull was born in 1942 to a farming family in McAdams, Mississippi. A creative and resourceful child, she recalled making “little things out of mud, like little dogs, dolls… We didn’t have no paint back then, way back in the country.” She purchased her home, located in an African American neighborhood, in 1974. She immediately adopted the space as her sanctuary and studio, curating it with a dense collection of objects and exploring painting, assemblage, gardening, and an ever-evolving art environment.
Dormant since her death in 2008, Hull’s home will be open to the public as one of the only preserved home-studios of a Black woman visual artist in America.
Primary Medium: Painting, assemblage, installation
Primary Stylistic Term: Artist-built environment, self-taught
Fun Fact: The L.V. Hull Home & Studio is the first home-studio of a Black woman visual artist to be added to the National Register of Historic Places at the level of National Significance and the first home of a Black art environment creator to be listed on the Register.
Recommended Publications: Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South, Vol II (2001)