Photo: Mississippi Arts Commission, 2002
About The L.V. Hull Legacy Center
Slated to open in 2026, the L.V. Hull Legacy Center will be an arts campus in Kosciusko, Mississippi, dedicated to celebrating Hull’s creative work and sharing her story through exhibitions and community-centered arts programming. For up-to-date information on the progress of this project, please see the timeline at the bottom of this page.
After L.V. Hull’s death in 2008, a group of local friends and supporters called The Friends of L.V. Hull gathered artwork and personal items from her home and carefully inventoried and packaged them for storage by the City of Kosciusko. In 2022, the artwork was cleaned, conserved, photographed, and cataloged by the Kohler Foundation of Kohler, Wisconsin, and gifted to a new local organization, the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko (AFK), for its permanent stewardship.
With the support of the Kohler Foundation, the Arts Foundation purchased a large corner lot within walking distance of L.V.’s home that will serve as Attala County’s first visual arts facility and one of the only arts spaces in the country dedicated to the work of a Black woman visual artist. The L.V. Hull Legacy Center will provide space for sharing L.V. Hull’s life and creative journey, exhibiting and interpreting a large collection of her artwork, and presenting rotating exhibitions in a dedicated gallery. It will also host public programming that is responsive to L.V.’s full life and a creative residency for the ongoing activation of her legacy.
In November 2025, the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko received its second grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission’s Building Fund for the Arts – $415,000 to support the finalization of the Legacy Center campus construction and site work. AFK is currently fundraising to meet the 40% match requirement. (Click here to donate toward the match.)
The Legacy Center campus will be anchored by L.V.’s home, the L.V. Hull Home & Studio, currently stewarded by the Keysmith Foundation. The Home was included on the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places list for 2023 and recently added to the National Register of Historic Places at the level of National Significance. The Keysmith Foundation was awarded grants from the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund and the National Park Service’s Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative which will allow stabilization to begin soon; however, more funds are needed to complete preservation.
This project is facilitated by an alliance that includes the Estate of L.V. Hull, the Arts Foundation of Kosciusko, the Keysmith Foundation, and a curatorial advisory committee.
Arts Foundation of Kosciusko
Mary Katherine Beard
Taylor Casey
Hollis Cheek – Vice President
Jesse Crosby Jr.
Rivers Dickerson
Minnie Greer
Mayor Tim Kyle
Allen Massey – President
Michelle Nicholson
Semone Olive
Kelly Quick – Treasurer
Yaphet Smith – Vice President – Curation
Kim Williams – Secretary
Keysmith Foundation
Yaphet Smith
MarKeith Allen
Janet Bawcom
Estate of L.V. Hull
L.V. Hull Curatorial Advisory Committee
- Ryan Dennis, Senior Curator at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (formerly Chief Curator at the Mississippi Museum of Art)
- Annalise Flynn, independent curator, SPACES Archives
- Lydia Jasper, Assistant Curator of the Permanent Collection at the Mississippi Museum of Art
- Allen Massey, AFK board member and friend of Hull
- Rachel Reichert, Residency Manager at Ruth Foundation for the Arts
- Yaphet Smith, Founder of Keysmith Foundation, AFK board member, filmmaker, and friend of Hull
- Georgia Wier, folklorist and friend of Hull
TIMELINE
Please check back here for updates related to the development of the L.V. Hull Legacy Center and the L.V. Hull Home & Studio.
1942
L.V. Bentley is born on August 6th in McAdams, Mississippi – a small town near Kosciusko.
1961
L.V. marries Frank Hull, and the couple settles in Kosciusko. They have one son named Joe Frank “Little Joe” Hull in 1964. L.V. and Frank divorce in 1965.
1968
Little Joe passes away due to a respiratory ailment at the age of 4.
1974
L.V. purchases her home at 123 Allen St. with wages from domestic work.
1975
L.V. begins “working with her imagination,” starting with amassing a large collection she installs throughout the home to eventually creating a yard installation, painting, and making assemblage sculptures. She makes artwork and welcomes visitors throughout the remainder of her life.
2008
L.V. Hull passes away at the age of 65.
2010
The Friends of L.V. Hull, a group of local friends and supporters, forms to assist with settling Hull’s estate (with her sister Q.T. Tinnin) and salvaging her artwork and personal effects from the home. The Friends store this collection of materials in Kosciusko.
2020
The Kohler Foundation is introduced to the Friends of L.V. Hull and accepts the collection of Hull’s artwork as a preservation project.
2021
Yaphet Smith, a friend of L.V. with familial ties to the neighborhood, purchases her home (which had remained unoccupied since her death) for stewardship by his nonprofit, the Keysmith Foundation. The Friends of L.V. Hull is dissolved. The Arts Foundation of Kosciusko (AFK), a board comprising former members of the Friends of L.V. Hull, a representative of L.V. Hull’s estate, and Kosciusko community leaders, is formed as a 501c3 to steward the collection of L.V.’s artwork and personal effects and develop the L.V. Hull Legacy Center.
2022
AFK, with Kohler Foundation’s financial support, purchases the corner lot at the end of L.V.’s street as the future home of the Legacy Center. Kohler Foundation gifts the conserved collection to AFK.
2023
L.V.’s home on Allen St., the L.V. Hull Home & Studio, is recognized as one of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places by the National Trust for Historic Preservation. AFK receives a $315k grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission for renovation of three of the four Legacy Center structures.
2024
The L.V. Hull Home & Studio is added to the National Register of Historic Places at the level of National Significance. It is the first home of a Black art environment creator to be listed and the first home/studio of a Black woman visual artist to be listed as nationally significant.
2025
Phase 3 renovation of the Legacy Center – the programming and gallery buildings – was completed. Initial stabilization of the L.V. Hull Home & Studio was completed.
The Arts Foundation of Koscuisko received its second Mississippi Arts Commission Building Fund for the Arts grant for $415k to finalize Phase 4 Legacy Center construction.
Photo: William Arnett, 1997
Souls Grown Deep Foundation Photographic Collection #20491,
Southern Folklife Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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