This oil on canvas portrait by Alabama artist Eva Lyle Wilkinson, dated 1947, was recently donated to the Dixie Art Colony Foundation.
Eva Lyle Wilkinson, Unknown Portrait, 1947, 26 x 21 inches; ELW-2020.AW.0001
Wilkinson's name can be found repeatedly in the DAC Foundation Archives. However, the extent of her involvement in the Elmore County colony is unclear. But we have reason to believe she was one of several artists that participated on the weekends. We know that she and Kelly Fitzpatrick were instructors and co-founders at the Montgomery Museum School, which links her to the Dixie Art Colony. There are numerous documents and newspaper clippings that refer to the Dixie Art Colony as a closely related arm of the Montgomery Museum School.
Eva Lyle Wilkinson, Detail of Unknown Portrait, 1947, 26 x 21 inches; ELW-2020.AW.0001
A newspaper article in the Montgomery Advertiser dated July 7, 1946, refers to an exhibition at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts featuring Eva's work. The list of her paintings includes the titles "On Lake Jordan" and "Mortor Creek," which further reinforces her association with the Elmore County colony. Also included in this MMFA exhibition was Eva's painting titled "Mountain at Little Switzerland, North Carolina." Based on newspaper clippings and personal accounts, we know that Eva spent time in the mountains of North Carolina teaching with artist Frank Stanley Herring. Herring was an instructor at the Grand School of Art, co-founded in New York City by renowned American artist John Singer Sargent. We also know that DAC artists Kelly Fitzpatrick and Carlos Alpha "Shiney" Moon spent time in the mountains of North Carolina painting. Prior to Eva's tenure at the Montgomery Museum School, she was head of the art department at Judson College, where she taught for 18 years.
Eva Lyle Wilkinson, DAC Foundation Archives; ELW-2020.PH.0001
Eva Lyle was born on September 7, 1878, to John Sanders Lyle and Lucy Bates Lyle in Wilcox County, Alabama. She graduated from Judson College and continued her studies at the Parsons School of Art & Design, New York City, under the direction of two of America's best-known artists, Robert Henri and William Merritt Chase. Chase is known as one of the country's foremost portraitists. After completing her studies in New York, Eva accepted a teaching position at Denison University in Granville, Ohio. During the summer months, Eva also studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in New Orleans.
After resigning from her position at Denison University, Eva returned to Alabama and married her childhood sweetheart, David Gaston Wilkinson, on December 1, 1909. The couple settled in Gastonburg, Alabama, and reared three daughters Lucy Elizabeth, Mary Murphy, and Eva Gaston. Later the couple relocated to Montgomery.
Dixie Art Colony Foundation, Wetumpka, Alabama