LaVerna Evans

LaVerna Evans was a versatile artist who worked in Kansas City, Missouri, from the early 1930s to the late 1970s. Known commercially for her fashion illustration, Evans was also a prolific painter and sculptor whose works captured the artist’s internal and external worlds.

LaVerna Estelle Evans was born in Denison, Texas, on November 30, 1909. Her father worked for the Union Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads, bringing the family to Kansas City in 1916. Evans graduated from Westport High School in 1927. She knew she wanted to pursue art as a career, so she won scholarships to attend the Kansas City Art Institute. Evans studied fashion design with Mary Lucas Rounds, sculpture with William Wallace Rosenbauer, and painting with Ross Eugene Braught.

After graduating from the Kansas City Art Institute in 1932, Evans left home to work at the Art Institute of Chicago, before returning a year later to Kansas City after her mother’s sudden death. She found freelance work illustrating for Kansas City stores Jaccard’s Jewelry Company and John Taylor’s Dry Goods Company, among other clients.

In 1935, LaVerna Evans married Leon Rubnitz, a doctor from Milwaukee working at Menorah Hospital in Kansas City. During World War II, he served in the Medical Corps, and Evans traveled with him to Washington D.C., New York, and Oklahoma. During this period, Evans created mechanical illustrations for the Department of Defense and fashion illustrations for Manhattan department stores. From 1942-1945, she taught at the Kansas City Art Institute and the Oklahoma College for Women.

When the war was over, Evans returned to Kansas City and resumed freelance illustration. For the next thirty years, Evans was a premier illustrator of the Kansas City fashion scene. Her clients included Macy’s, Robert Keith Furniture, Cousin’s Furniture, Robinson’s Shoes, and the Nine-Fifteen Junior Shop. In 1980, she retired as an illustrator to focus on a new career as a professional championship dog breeder.

Evans frequently painted her surroundings, using watercolor to express feeling through composition, gesture and tone. Many works reflect the Kansas City landscape, while others capture scenes from trips to Colorado, New Mexico, Cuba, the Caribbean, New England and Minnesota. While she did not frequently show her paintings, in 1949 Evans participated in an alumni exhibition at the Kansas City Art Institute.

LaVerna Evans died on November 30, 2000, at 91 years old. The collection of work she left behind documents the artist’s many worlds, from the heart of Kansas City’s fashion scene to the rugged Midwestern landscape.