Theresa Gloster (NC), All Tucked In

Acrylic on panel, not signed, artist framed.

Frame dimensions 24 3/4 x 25 in.

From the Collection of Linda Shropshire, Durham, North Carolina

Theresa Gloster was born in a mining camp in West Virginia, and grew up in the foothills of Caldwell County, North Carolina. She is an acclaimed self-taught folk and memory painter whose vivid narrative scenes preserve the daily life of the African American community of Bushtown, where she was raised. Growing up in a large family shaped by the resourcefulness of domestic craft traditions, Gloster draws on childhood experiences of kinship, work, faith, and play.
Working with house paint on cardboard, tin, wood, furniture, and found materials, Gloster creates bustling, detail-rich compositions animated by humor, intimacy, and intergenerational memory. Her practice reflects the aesthetics of oral storytelling and quiltmaking, and her home itself functions as a living installation filled with the scenes she paints. Rooted in folk traditions yet unmistakably personal, her works serve as visual archives of a disappearing rural Southern way of life.
Gloster has emerged as one of North Carolinas most respected folk artists, recognized with the prestigious South Arts Master Artist Fellowship in 2021. Her work is held in distinguished private collections, including that of the late André Leon Talley, the influential Vogue editor and cultural tastemaker whose support helped elevate her national profile, as well as by numerous regional and national collectors. Her inclusion on the Blue Ridge National Heritage Area craft trail and her exhibitions throughout the Southeast further affirm her importance as a chronicler of community memory and a vital voice in contemporary American folk art.

Abrasion to left frame edge.