Bessie Harvey

Subjects and genres recorded for the work are naïve art and figurative art. Places of work recorded in the authority are Alcoa. Residence is recorded at Alcoa and Tennessee. Work by Bessie Harvey is recorded in the collections of Philadelphia Museum of Art and Smithsonian American Art Museum.

• Name — Bessie Harvey • Birth Name — Bessie Ruth White • Born — 11 October 1929 • Birthplace — Dallas, Georgia, United States • Died — 12 August 1994 • Place of death — Alcoa, Tennessee, United States • Field — Sculpture • Training — Self-taught

Born Bessie Ruth White in Dallas, Georgia, she was the seventh of 13 children born to Homer and Rosie Mae White. As a child, she made toys and sculptures out of twigs. Overtime, these once simple structures grew in complexity - into the sculptures we see today. At the age of 14, Bessie married Charles Harvey and settled in Buena Vista, Georgia. She divorced Harvey in 1968 and relocated independently to Alcoa, Tennessee, where she was raising 11 children by the age of 35. As a child, she recalls making "something out of nothing," often creating her own toys and dolls. In addition to having 11 children, Harvey had 28 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

In 1977, Harvey began working at Blount Memorial Hospital as a housekeeper. For extra income, at night while everyone was asleep Harvey would make dolls. She entered one of her sculptures, a work entitled "Banda", into the hospital's yearly art show which then sold, beginning her artistic career. One of the staff doctors introduced her to the directors of the Cavin-Morris Gallery in New York City, which continued to sell her work exclusively for several years.

Harvey's sculptures are made of found materials, predominantly wood branches and roots, which she then decorated with paint, glitter, jewelry, and other materials. Though she worked primarily with wood, Harvey also created sculptures from clay and some works on paper. She began creating art in 1974, shortly after her mother, Rosie White, died. Harvey's work belongs to a larger tradition of black vernacular art created in the American South. The assemblage aspect of her work, the use of found materials, and emphasis on religious themes are common to the black vernacular art tradition. As a creator of visionary art, she often claims that God is the main source for her work, even to the extent that He is working through her: "I’m really not the artist. God is the artist in my work; nature and insects, they shape my work for me, because they belong to God. I belong to God, and all things belong to God, because it’s in his Word that all things are made to him, that without him there’s not anything made." According to Harvey, God allowed her to see anthropomorphic forms within the wood she worked with, and with that help she could give physical shape to the spiritual presences within these tree roots, limbs, and pieces of driftwood. Her interest in nature was due in part to her belief that she could access or see the spirit of her ancestors within trees, for example, and her general belief in transcendentalism. Her work often reflected specific biblical stories, including stories from Genesis and Revelation. She also created a series of works inspired by the African-American experience in the United States. When naming her works, she frequently used an African-English dictionary to provide a direct connection to her African heritage.

Called To Create: Black Artists of the American South, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, September 18, 2022 – March 26, 2023.