Accession Number
2002/1.217

Title
Yellow Critter

Artist(s)
Minnie Black

Object Creation Date
1960-1996

Medium & Support
painted and embellished gourd

Dimensions
4 3/4 x 13 1/4 x 6 3/4 in. (12 x 33.6 x 17 cm)

Credit Line
Gift of The Daniel and Harriet Fusfeld Folk Art Collection

Label copy
Minnie Black
United States, 1899–1996
Yellow Critter
1960–96
Painted and embellished gourd
Gift of the Daniel and Harriet Fusfeld Folk Art Collection, 2002/1.217
While households have made objects out of gourds for centuries, Minnie Black used gourds as a sculptural medium. Black started her first gourd garden around 1960, and by the late 1960s she had created her own Gourd Craft Museum, a roadside attraction filled with her sculptural creations. Minnie also founded what she termed “the world’s only all-gourd senior citizens’ band,” who played gourd instruments of Black’s making. Her artistic endeavors and outgoing personality made her a media darling of the 1980s, when she appeared on The Tonight Show and Late Night with David Letterman.
(Out of the Ordinary, 2010)

Primary Object Classification
Sculpture

Primary Object Type
found object

Additional Object Classification(s)
Sculpture

Collection Area
Modern and Contemporary

Rights
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Keywords
Animals
fantasy (imagination)
yellow