Bessie Harvey

Bessie Harvey (born Bessie Ruth White on October 11, 1929, died August 12, 1994) was an American folk artist best known for her sculptures constructed out of found objects, primarily pieces of found wood. Her work is often categorized as outsider art, visionary art, or self-taught art.

Born in Dallas, Georgia, Harvey was the seventh of thirteen children born to Homer and Rosie Mae White. At the age of fourteen she married Charles Harvey, from whom she separated in her early twenties and relocated independently to Alcoa, Tennessee. A deeply religious person, Harvey's faith and her interest in nature were primary sources for her work. As a child, she recalls making "something out of nothing," often creating her own toys and dolls.

In 1977, Harvey began working at Blount Memorial Hospital. After exhibiting her artwork at the hospital, her work drew attention and gallery representation. After that time, she increasingly focused on her artwork until her death in 1994.

Harvey's sculptures were typically wood decorated with paint, beads, shells, cloth, and other found materials, combining "performance (on the order of a puppet show) sculpture, painting, and assemblage".

Harvey's work belongs to a larger tradition of black folk art created in the American South. The assemblage aspect of her work, the use of found materials, and emphasis on religious themes are common to the black folk art tradition. As a visionary artist, she often claims that God is the main source for her work, even to the extent that he is working through her: "I’m really not the artist. God is the artist in my work; nature and insects, they shape my work for me, because they belong to God. I belong to God, and all things belong to God, because it’s in his Word that all things are made to him, that without him there’s not anything made." According to Harvey, God allowed her to see anthropomorphic forms within the wood she worked with, and with that help she could give physical shape to the spiritual presences within these tree roots, limbs, and pieces of driftwood. Her interest in nature was due in part to her belief that she could access or see the spirit of her ancestors within trees, for example, and the general belief that God and nature are one.

Her work often reflected specific biblical stories, including stories from Genesis and Revelations. She also created a series of works inspired by the African American experience in the United States.

Harvey's work has been included in over 50 exhibitions, including a posthumous inclusion in the 1995 Whitney Biennial. Her work Cross Bearers was subsequently purchased by the Whitney Museum for its permanent collection. She was also the subject of a major retrospective in 1997 at the Tennessee Museum of Art. Her works are in the permanent collections of the Knoxville Museum of Art and the American Folk Art Museum, New York.

Harvey has been cited as an influence by Alison Saar, and a street in Alcoa has been named after her.