Evans-Tibbs House

[3]The Evans-Tibbs House is an historic house in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It has been listed on the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites since 1985 and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. It is a contributing property in the Greater U Street Historic District.

Evans-Tibbs House
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district Contributing property
Location	1910 Vermont Ave., NW Washington, D.C.
Coordinates	38°54′57″N 77°1′35″W
Built	1894
Architect	R.E. Crump
Architectural style	Late Victorian
Part of	Greater U Street Historic District[1] (ID93001129)
NRHP reference No.	86003025 [2]
Added to NRHP	September 8, 1987

Lillian Evans Tibbs

The house was the residence of Lillian Evans Tibbs from 1904 to 1967. Performing under the stage name Madame Lillian Evanti, she was one of the first internationally acclaimed African American opera singers.[4] She was also the first African American to perform with an organized European opera company and she performed for Eleanor Roosevelt at the White House. Tibbs served as a Goodwill Ambassador to South America, and in 1942 she helped establish the National Negro Opera Company.

After Tibbs' death her grandson, Thurlow Evans Tibbs, Jr. lived in the house.[5] He established and operated an art gallery called the Evans-Tibbs Collection. Upon his death in 1997 the art collection was bequeathed to the Corcoran Gallery of Art; at that institution's dismantling in 2014, the Tibbs collection of art and archives went to the National Gallery of Art.[6]

Architecture

The structure is a two-story brick rowhouse designed by architect R.E. Crump. It was built in 1894; the decorative iron railings with stylized harps were added to the house in a 1932 renovation.[4]

References

1. Trieschmann, Laura V.; Sellin, Anne; Callcott, Stephen (November 1998), National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Greater U Street Historic District (PDF), retrieved March 31, 2015.
2. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 13, 2009.
3. McElroy, Guy C (1989). African-American artists, 1880-1987 : selections from the Evans-Tibbs Collection. Powell, Richard J., 1953-, Patton, Sharon F., Smithsonian Institution. Traveling Exhibition Service. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, in association with University of Washington Press, Seattle. pp. 13. ISBN 0295968370. OCLC 20917949.
4. "District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites". DC Preservation. Archived from the original on July 1, 2011. Retrieved 2011-12-15.
5. "Madame Lillian Evanti (Lillian Evans Tibbs) Residence, African American Heritage Trail". Cultural Tourism DC. Archived from the original on 2012-05-12. Retrieved 2011-12-15.
6. "National Gallery of Art Announces Historic Acquisition of More Than 6,000 Works of Art from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; Plus Upcoming Installations at the Gallery and the Corcoran". www.nga.gov. Retrieved 19 January 2018.