Mary Ann Carroll: First Lady of the Highwaymen

Mary Ann Carroll is the never-before-told story of a Black female artist's hard-fought journey to provide for her family while also making a name for herself in a man's world. In the years since the art world discovered them, much has been made of the Highwaymen--the loosely knit band of African American painters whose edenic Florida landscapes, created with inexpensive materials and sold out of their cars, "shaped the state's popular image as much as oranges and alligators" (New York Times). But lost in the legends surrounding the group is the mesmerizing story of Mary Ann Carroll, the only female "Highwayman."In 1957, sixteen-year-old Carroll met Harold Newton, later dubbed the original Highwayman. He was painting a landscape along the side of the road. There were red flames on his car. Yet what shocked the young African American girl most of all was discovering a Black man who didn't work in the orange groves, who made a living off of his paintings. It wasn't long before she was cre