By the 1950s, Evans had become a local celebrity in Wilmington. Formal recognition of her artistic achievements began in 1961 with the exhibition of her drawings at Wilmington's Little Gallery. Exhibitions at New York's Church of the Epiphany and St. Clement's Episcopal Church in 1966 were followed by profiles in Newsweek (1969), Southern Living (1970), and Ms. (1974). In 1975 the Whitney mounted an exhibition of Evans's work that was extremely well received while also raising questions about race and representation of self-taught artists within mainstream American art museums. The Whitney exhibition was a milestone for Evans, and her work has continued to appear in significant contemporary art contexts from major recent surveys of Southern art to the 2022 Venice Biennale.
