Updated March 16, 2026, 10:10 a.m. CT
It was a done deal long before the jurors even sat down to deliberate.
The electrifying individual careers, captivating artistic talents and shared local legacies of multi-disciplinary artists Della Wells and Evelyn Patricia Terry were undeniable. So when the time came to award this year’s Nohl Fellowships to two artists in the established category, the jurors had no doubt.
Each year, the Nohl Fellowship panel of jurors evaluate applicants based on a rubric of the judges’ own making. According to fellowship coordinator Polly Morris, jurors have historically been drawn to the novelty of young, contemporary artists. This year, however, they approached the selection process more holistically, Morris said.
“There’s now been a kind of shift in the curatorial world where people are thinking more about lost legacies,” Morris said. “I feel like sometimes this moves over into lifetime achievement award as well as responding to their work.”
Both Wells and Terry had applied for the fellowship before, but as Terry would put it, this timing was divine. When she found out Wells applied, Terry was certain Wells would be selected. So she asked God if somehow they could both win.
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Their wins are no shock because their talent is indisputable. But the marvel of this moment is in the fact that they won together. Two Black women who came up in the Black Arts Movement together and, as it happens, are lifelong friends who continue to inspire each other through their artistic practices.
But in as many ways as these two women are similar, they are different.
One is represented by a gallery; the other is an independent, free agent. One never imagined being anything other than an artist; the other never imagined she would become one at all. One sells every piece she makes, preferring not to stare at her own finished work for too long; the other has made her home the site of a never-ending exhibition, with her work hanging on every wall, spread across every table.
Yet both employ art so profoundly – depicting raw emotion, visualizing a better world, educating masses. Their practices have affected generations. Their mentorship has shaped many of Milwaukee’s artists. And they care deeply about this place and the people in it.
Their remarkable talent, rich artistic histories and dedicated service to the Milwaukee community were among the many things that made awarding them the Nohl Fellowship such an easy decision for the jurors.
Two different paths to becoming artists
The two began their artistic journeys differently, but both were astonished to discover the same seemingly ordinary fact: there are other Black women artists in the world.
For Terry, art came as a redemptive gift. The now 80-year-old describes her young life with the kind of resignation and desolation that, according to her, only art could save.
At 12 years old, she recalled, she didn’t even really know art existed. She had no rich exposure to culture as a child, and no one to give it to her.
Terry’s mother was a hard worker, moved more by pragmatism than passion. She wanted to own a home, build stability. The art world, perhaps, represented a luxury she and her family wouldn’t have time for. Terry’s father was largely absent, spending his days gambling and drowning his inhibitions and responsibilities in alcohol.
“I cried every day. ‘This a horrible world, life is stupid, why do I have to live here?’ – it was crazy,” Terry recalled. “I hated maybe everything up until I found art.”
She attended school with the begrudging obligation of a child whose mother wasn’t afforded the opportunity of an education. She tried to view her education as a privilege, but she struggled with her classes, even the artistically inclined ones like home economics where she could sew and design interiors. The rigid structure felt confining to her – having to match everything according to someone else’s definition of beauty.
Eventually she took a visual art class, and Terry’s teacher told her she was meant to be an artist.
But the idea seemed neither practical nor possible for Terry. With a mother who wouldn’t let her into the world without a college degree, she planned to pursue a more traditional profession. Her teacher assured her that she could get a degree in art, and that’s when everything changed.
At the time, the Jacob Lawrences and Elizabeth Catletts of the world were completely unknown to Terry. As far as she knew, she was the first Black artist in the world. And she embraced this idea without hesitation. Long before any doubters had the chance to sow seeds, she decided within herself that she would make art for a living.
Since 1985, she has kept that promise. And her dedication has been matched only by her unwavering belief in herself.
As a young, Black, female artist, Terry quickly became her own advocate in the face of skepticism and exploitation.
At times, she had to protect her art alone. Dealers tried to cheat her out of her work or return damaged pieces, and many in her life told her she couldn’t be a famous living artist because of where she grew up.
Despite these challenges, one of Terry’s greatest strengths has been her resolve and self-assurance, which she now teaches to young artists.
“I tell people, you have to think about what you want, not whatever people say you can’t do,” Terry said.
She also stresses the importance of documentation as an emerging artist. To this day, she records everything – every conflict, every home visitor, every show she participates in.
“I have a stack of outgoing correspondences,” she said as she pointed to the hundreds of files under the bench in her living room. “I have files of disputes. I really try to tell someone else that this is going on.”
Over the years, Terry has worked with many disciplines. But early on, she formed a particular bond with printmaking.
“I don’t know what these people are doing, but I’m supposed to be here,” Terry said of the first time she saw a printmaker at work.
Since then, her work has been exhibited globally. From the Cedarburg Art Museum to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City to a solo show in Russia.
In her work, Terry imagines a better world than the one we inhabit. Using word art, abstraction, figurative drawings and found object collage, she reflects on the value of inward change in collective progression toward love and liberation.
In her life, as much as her art, Terry preaches these lessons of health and hope. Her mentorship has touched many local artists, including Wells.
Terry likes to say Wells grew up like Jean-Michel Basquiat – surrounded by art and culture. Her mother took her to museums often, and her father kept a collection of art books that Wells was not shy about raiding.
The now 75-year-old Wells had a talent for art early on, too. In fact, she sold her first piece at 13 – an abstract sculpture she made in school and sold to her teacher. But beyond a short-lived dream of becoming a fashion designer, Wells would’ve laughed in the face of anyone saying she should be a visual artist.
She couldn’t stand the art classes she took in school, but she couldn’t escape creativity. She doodled in her free time, as an early exploration of her drawing style. As an 18-year-old, she volunteered to rewrite a gallery’s exhibition review, which she felt lacked a proper read on the show.
Even her early career plans in home improvement – painting houses and barns – required some appreciation for creativity. But she quickly got injured on the job, so she was advised to switch careers and decided to become a psychologist. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she picked up minors in African-American studies and women’s studies.
There, she wrote a paper about a local Black artist she’d remembered from her youth – Evelyn Patricia Terry.
Wells had met her when she was young, at The Gallery Toward the Black Aesthetic – a ’60s and ’70s-era exhibition space dedicated to works of the African diaspora. So when Wells later attended one of Terry’s shows, Terry remembered her. In fact, Terry had seen some of Wells’ sketches and recognized a certain style.
During the show, Terry turned to Wells and told her she was an artist, just as Terry’s teacher had once told her.
Wells laughed it off and spent the next several years ignoring Terry’s advice. For some time, she worked as a union steward. Little did she know her heart for others would fuel her art career and her mentorship years later.
Wells didn’t really start making art until she was 42. But when she finally felt inspired, she remembered Terry’s words.
“Believe it or not, a voice told me to go make art. So I told Evelyn, ‘I’m ready to go make art now,’” she recalled.
The two went to Terry’s studio, and Wells’ natural talent surprised even Terry. Wells was confident and self-assured; the size of the paper didn’t intimidate her in the way Terry had seen for new artists.
“[Terry] gave me a piece of paper, and then she took the paper away because she said I drew too well,” Wells told Nicole Sweeney of MKE in 2006.
Like Terry, Wells’ resolve is one of her greatest strengths. Just as she approached the paper in Terry’s studio, Wells pursued a career in art as a 42-year-old self-taught artist without fear of the art world’s gatekeepers or expectations.
“If you tell me I can’t do something and I know I can do it, I will show you I can do it,” Wells said.
And she certainly has.
Her work has been exhibited in the Midwest, New York, Europe and beyond. Though she’s most well-known for her collages, she has worked in many media. Bridging her background in sociology and psychology, Wells uses her work to depict a world where Black women have the strength to counter oppressive forces and cultural erasure.
Mentoring the artists of tomorrow
Despite her upbringing, Wells lived some 20 years before discovering that there are Black artists in the world. Once she found out, her fascination was insatiable. She spent her free time roaming the halls of The Gallery Toward the Black Aesthetic.
And while that Milwaukee gallery no longer exists, its mission is memorialized in artists like Terry and Wells. In their relentless pursuit to put Black art on the map.
A kind of archive of the Black Arts Movement, the gallery was central to the arts scene that raised them. They are products and pillars of that time, and they carry forth the wisdom and determination that has sustained their careers all these years.
They now pass that wisdom on to others, with mentorship becoming one of the greatest facets of their artistic talents. Their names and legacies have come up everywhere from introductory coffees to artist run-ins in my first few weeks in Milwaukee. Many local artists can’t help but attribute pieces of their journeys to Wells and Terry.
Even between them, they have learned so much.
“I couldn’t do art before, even though I knew how to draw,” Wells said. “I would draw one line and say, ‘oh this is ugly.’ Evelyn told me to keep working with it. And I said, this is just like life.”
Despite her deeply embedded independence, Terry’s friendship with Wells has perhaps softened her skepticism towards others.
“I usually don’t go to other people when I’m having a bad time in my brain,” she later texted me. “Over the years maybe I learned ‘trust’ in my interactions with Della Wells. I have grown to trust that Della also has my best interest in mind.”
Anya Sesay covers arts and culture for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Send her story ideas, things to see and people to meet at asesay@usatodayco.com. Follow her on Instagram @anyanic0lette.
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