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Sister Gertrude Morgan (American, 1900-1980) Triumph Crayon and pencil on paper 7-1/2 x 8-1/2 inches (19.1 x 21.6 cm) (sheet) PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF EDWARD HABIB AND ROD MCKUEN In celebration of Women's History Month Sister Gertrude Morgan was a self-taught African American artist, musician, poet and preacher. She was born Gertrude Williams in 1900 in Lafayette, Alabama, married young, and devoted the second half of her life to following God's will. In 1937, God "told her" to share the gospel with the world, so she became an itinerant street preacher, eventually settling in New Orleans -- what she called "the headquarters of sin" -- where she co-founded an orphanage and ministered to the poor. In 1956, God spoke to her again, this time commanding her to paint, and paint she did, despite her lack of training - brightly hued, childlike religious fantasias rendered in crayon, pencil, pen, and acrylics on canvas, cardboard, wood, toilet paper rolls, lamp shades, funeral parlor fans, jelly glasses, and detergent boxes. Morgan's exuberant visionary paintings, which she coupled with rambling Bible verses, were designed as both personal devotions and teaching tools. Around the same time that Morgan began painting as a means of evangelizing, God proclaimed that she was to serve as the Bride of Christ. Shedding her black robes, she donned a nurse's white uniform with cap and set up shop in the whitewashed Everlasting Gospel Mission in the French Quarter. Her colorful paintings, signed "Your Boss's Wife" and "Nurse to Doctor Jesus," enlivened the otherwise white environment. Sister Gertrude famously worked the crowds outside of the Mission, playing her tambourine, singing in a husky voice, and shouting sermons through her painted megaphone. Her lively personality and art attracted the local gallery owner Larry Borenstein, who during the 1960s catapulted her to national acclaim by organizing exhibitions of her paintings, producing record albums of her singing-preaching, and raising money to HID04901242017