210 eleventh avenue, ste 201 new york, ny 10001 t 212 226 3768 f 212 226 0155 CAVIN-MORRIS GALLERY e
[email protected] www.cavinmorris.com BESSIE HARVEY !(born October 11, 1929 in Dallas, Georgia; died August 12, 1994) Born in Dallas, Georgia in 1929, Bessie Harvey's childhood was one of poverty and hardship. She grew up during the Great Depression, the seventh of thirteen children. She is oft quoted as saying "The story of my life would make Roots and The Color Purple look like a fairy tale. There was nothing. In the morning, you'd just get up, go looking for whatever you could find, and if you had one meal that day, then you'd made progress." Bessie attended school through the fourth grade, then went to work as a domestic. She married Charles Harvey at the age of fourteen, so she was no longer a economic burden to her family. Bessie stayed married to Harvey into her early twenties. They separated and she independently moved away, eventually settling in Alcoa, Tennessee with their five children. There she continued to work as a domestic and later married Cleve Jackson. Over the course of a twenty year marriage which ended in divorce, the !couple had six children. Always deeply religious and attuned to the essential spiritual nature of the world, Bessie sought expression for her experiences and beliefs. She recalled creating toys and dolls,"something out of nothing", as a child. As an adult, she would do the same to bring her visionary experiences into the physical world.