Gertrude Morgan

Sister Gertrude Morgan (April 7, 1900 – July 8, 1980) was a self-taught African-American artist, musician, poet and preacher.

Around 1917 her family moved to Columbus, Georgia, where she worked as a servant and nursemaid in a private home.

Gertrude Williams married Will Morgan on February 12, 1928.

She lived with her husband at 1324 North Avenue in Columbus, GA. While there is no evidence of a divorce, it is known that Sister Morgan left Columbus alone in 1938, traveling first to Alabama and then to New Orleans, where she would settle.

Sister Morgan's first documented involvement with religion came in her late teens, when she joined the Rose Hill Memorial Baptist Church, a local congregation in Columbus, Georgia.

These paintings narrate the shifts in the Rose Hill church leadership, after the death of Reverend Miller in 1930.

The first of many revelations that Gertrude was to experience came in 1934.

The story of this revelation is inscribed on one of her paintings, 1324 NO AVE COLUMBUS GA. (n.d.).

On it she has written, "Sitting in my Kitchen one night I heard a great strong Voice speak to me said I'll make thee as a signet for I have chosen thee I got this calling on the 30th day of Dec in 1934 I had to answere to my calling and one day give up and Pack up and go … a chosed vessel of God's its wonderful to Be. God called me a chased me and turned me into the hands of his son and JESUS said take up your cross and follow me."

In 1938 a second revelation followed, in the form of a voice that said, "Go-o-o-o-o, Preacher, tell it to the World".

It was in this year that she left Columbus, first for Opelika, Alabama, then to Mobile and possibly Montgomery.

She worked as a nursemaid and nanny in Opelika and Mobile, and possibly began work as a healer and street prophet during this time.

Born in LaFayette, Alabama, she relocated to New Orleans in 1939, where she lived and worked until her death in 1980.

Sister Morgan achieved critical acclaim during her lifetime for her folk art paintings.

When she arrived in New Orleans in 1939, Sister Gertrude met Mother Margaret Parker and Sister Cora Williams.

The two women were involved in the Holiness and Sanctified movement, an African American faith in which the activities of music, song and dance were central.

The three women soon established a mission and orphanage at Mother Parker's house at 533 Flake Avenue in Lower Gentilly, then on the outskirts of New Orleans.

The orphanage was funded by money raised from preaching and performing in the streets.

The three women adopted black robes, and gave shelter to as many as twenty orphans and runaways at a time.

(In Sister Gertrude's paintings, the three women are pictured in their black robes, adorned with white collars, cuffs and waist ties).

As Gentilly was a fairly rural area at this time, they raised livestock and grew vegetables on the land surrounding the large house.

They held neighborhood feasts at the Orphanage, where the 'Prophetesses' (as Sister Morgan would later name them in her paintings) would play the piano, drums, cymbals and beat tambourines.

In addition to street preaching, the three women visited Orleans Parish Prison, providing spiritual guidance for inmates, as well as traveling to other towns in Louisiana and Texas for church camps and meetings.

After she began painting in 1956, Sister Morgan documented this time in her life in the paintings THE Rose Hill MEMORiAL BAPTiST CHURCH, Columbus Ga. (n.d.) and Rose Hill Memorial Baptist Church (n.d.).

Sister Morgan worked at the orphanage until 1957.

After leaving Gentilly, Sister Morgan roomed in various houses, mostly in the Lower Ninth Ward, an historically African American neighborhood in Orleans Parish.

Eventually she settled at 5444 North Dorgenois street in the Lower Ninth, in a single shotgun house with the owner of the property, Jennie Johnson.

The lawn of the property was allegedly covered in four leafed clovers, a detail that can be glimpsed in black and white photographs of the property.

She named it the "Everlasting Gospel Mission", and turned the first room of the house into a prayer room where she would give sermons.

Her paintings adorned the white walls of the prayer room, which also contained a small desk, a tapping stick, musical instruments and her painted paper megaphones that she would use to preach.

Morgan's former house and mission remained a neighborhood landmark after her death.

In 1957 Sister Morgan received another revelation from God.

Dreaming, she heard a voice that told her she was the Bride of Christ.

She then discarded her black missionary attire in favor of an all-white ensemble made up of a nurses' uniform, peaked nurses' cap and matching white shoes.

Her work has been included in many groundbreaking exhibitions of visionary and folk art from the 1970s onwards.

Sister Morgan was born Gertrude Williams in Lafayette, Alabama, to mother Frances "Fannie" Williams and father Edward Williams.

She was the seventh child of a poor rural family.

For reasons unknown, Sister Morgan left school before completing the third grade.

Like the rest of the neighborhood, it was severely damaged in the Federal levee failure flood disaster during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The damaged house was gutted in hopes it could be repaired and renovated, but was subsequently demolished.