L.V. Hull’s continually evolving art environment, created from found objects she adorned and carefully placed in her yard in Kosciusko, MS, 1997. Collection Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Courtesy Souls Grown Deep and Estate of L.V. Hull. Photo: Bill Arnett
Blurring the lines between art, life, and community, L.V. Hull (b.1942, McAdams, MS; d.2008, Kosciusko, MS) repurposed found objects not only to create stand-alone works but also to transform her home into a vibrant art environment. A self-taught artist, she began her creative practice in the mid-1970s after purchasing her home in rural Kosciusko, which she called her “show off place”—a space rooted in the Southern tradition of hospitality. In 2024, Hull’s home was added to the National Register of Historic Places, becoming the first home studio of an African American woman visual artist to receive such recognition. It is now preserved by the Keysmith Foundation. Just steps away from Hull’s home, the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko (AFK) is developing the
L.V. Hull Home & Legacy Center, scheduled to open in spring 2026.
L.V. Hull, Untitled, 2002. Acrylic paint on saw. Collection Arts Foundation of Kosciusko, gift of Kohler Foundation, Inc. Courtesy Arts Foundation of Kosciusko and Estate of L.V. Hull
Also in spring 2026, the first major museum exhibition devoted to Hull will take place simultaneously at the Legacy Center and the
Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA) in Jackson, the state capital. Through this exhibition, cocurators Ryan N. Dennis, Annalise Flynn, and Yaphet Smith present an expanded account of American creativity—one that holds space for Black, female, self-taught, rural artists like Hull, who worked outside the mainstream art world. At MMA, the curatorial team will organize Hull’s artwork using display methods inspired by how she arranged works in her home. The Legacy Center exhibition will focus on her impact on her community and feature Hull’s archive and her artwork, which has been conserved by the
Kohler Foundation.
L.V. Hull’s art installed in dense displays throughout her home in Kosciusko, MS, 1997. Collection Wilson Special Collections Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Courtesy Souls Grown Deep and Estate of L.V. Hull. Photo: Bill Arnett
Ryan N. Dennis is Co-Director and Chief Curator at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH). Since joining CAMH in 2023, she stewarded Rebirth in Action, the museum’s collaboration with Houston Freedmen’s Town Conservancy (HFTC), and co-curated Theaster Gates’ blockbuster solo exhibition The Gift and The Renege (2024). Dennis came to CAMH from the Mississippi Museum of Art (Jackson), where she curated exhibitions such as Betye Saar: Call & Response (2021) and Leonardo Drew: City in the Garden (2020). She also organized the Center for Art and Public Exchange’s (CAPE) 2021 Artist-in-Residence project with Shani Peters, Collective Care for Black Mothers and Caretakers, in collaboration with the Jackson community. Dennis co-curated the critically acclaimed exhibition A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration (2022–ongoing), and the 2021 Texas Biennial: A New Landscape, A Possible Horizon.
Annalise Flynn is an independent curator and arts administrator based in Sheboygan, WI. Her current clients include the Kohler Foundation, where she manages SPACES Archives (Saving and Preserving Arts and Cultural Environments), the world’s largest repository of archival documentation related to artist-built environments; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), where she teaches a survey course dedicated to artist-built environments; and both the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko and the Keysmith Foundation, for whom she is assisting with the preservation of the artist L.V. Hull’s work, home, and legacy. Flynn serves on the founding board for the Artist-Built Environment Network (ABEN). Her work centers on highlighting vernacular creative activity, using material, collective memory, and place as research pillars. She holds a BS from Northwestern University and an MA in Art History, Theory, and Criticism from SAIC.
Yaphet Smith is a screenwriter, lawyer, and documentary filmmaker based in Austin, TX. Dedicated to enriching life through story, he focuses on narratives that reflect the full humanity of Black people. He is currently exploring the power of storytelling through the preservation and activation of the legacy of artist L.V. Hull. To this end, Smith serves as liaison to Hull’s estate, President of the Keysmith Foundation (the steward of her historic home), and Vice President of Curation for the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko, which is developing the L.V. Hull Legacy Center on the street where she lived. He is also the director of the forthcoming documentary Love Is a Sensation, an affectionate, one-hour home movie portrait of Hull and her quest to present a cherished work of art to blues legend B.B. King.