Inez Walker (1911-1990)

Inez Walker ,Self-taught  Folk Artist, was born in Sumter, South Carolina, and orphaned at an early age. She was married when only 13 years old and quickly had four children. After moving North, she worked at several different factory jobs before being convicted of killing a man who had abused her. It was while imprisoned at Bedford Hills Correctional Institute from 1971 to 1974 that she began to draw.

Using any paper available, even on the back of prison handouts, she drew with graphite the people around her, mainly the inmates whom she referred to as the "Bad Girls." The bad girls are often depicted in social situations engaging in the pleasures of drinking, smoking and conversing. Her figures have especially large heads with large eyes and are often tinted with colored pencils or crayons. Men and children only occasionally appear in her work.

Walker quit drawing in her later years and even disappeared for a while. She began to paint again shortly before her death in 1990.