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Celebrating Dolly Parton (12 Photos)
## Dolly Parton **was already living on the walls**
Dolly Parton died on August 25, 2026, at 80. Her family announced the news. For years, artists had already placed her across brick walls, school façades, nightclub parking lots, fences and a courthouse lawn. These are not twelve versions of the same celebrity portrait: they show a hometown daughter, a reader, an ally, a champion of children and a bright spot on an ordinary commute.
### More: Hit the Right Note! (20 Photos)
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### 🎸 Jim Gray’s Dolly Parton statue — Sevierville, Tennessee, USA 🇺🇸
Sculptor Jim Gray placed a young, barefoot Dolly with her guitar on a Smoky Mountain boulder outside the Sevier County Courthouse. The 6.5-foot bronze was unveiled on May 3, 1987, after more than 2,000 hours of work—a public monument in her hometown while she was still in mid-career. The history is documented by Dolly Parton’s official site and Visit Sevierville.
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### 🍔 “Red’s Café” by Ben Harrison and Seth Bishop — Sevierville, Tennessee, USA 🇺🇸
This mural looks past the sequins to childhood. A young blonde girl represents Dolly at Red’s Café, a Sevierville restaurant she loved when she was growing up. Ben Harrison, who now works as Zaxerl, and Seth Bishop of Smoky Mountain Mural Co. painted the Bruce Street scene over two weeks. The artwork is documented by Visit Sevierville; this photograph comes from Carol M. Highsmith’s Library of Congress archive.
🔗 Follow **Smoky Mountain Mural Co. on Instagram**
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### 📚 Dolly’s literacy mural by Kim Radford — Nashville, Tennessee, USA 🇺🇸
On Hume-Fogg Magnet High School, Kim Radford painted Dolly reading with a child in a rocking chair, surrounded by color and butterflies. The mural honors her work for childhood literacy. By June 2026, her Imagination Library had gifted more than 325 million books to children.
🔗 Follow **Kim Radford on Instagram**
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### 🦋 Dolly at The 5 Spot by Kim Radford — Nashville, Tennessee, USA 🇺🇸
Radford’s portrait at The 5 Spot places Dolly among butterflies and wildflowers, with text recalling her public support for the Black Lives Matter movement. The neighborhood wall turns a public stance into something people meet at street level. Visit Music City documents the work and its location.
🔗 Follow **Kim Radford on Instagram**
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### 🎨 Strong Alley Dolly by Colton Valentine and Megan Lingerfelt — Knoxville, Tennessee, USA 🇺🇸
Colton Valentine completed the original portrait in 2019. After it was defaced in 2020, Dogwood Arts asked local artist Megan Lingerfelt to restore and expand it—with Valentine’s blessing. The restoration made the present mural a rare public portrait with two credited lives.
🔗 Follow **Colton Valentine on Instagram** and **Megan Lingerfelt on Instagram**
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### 🕊️ Frontline-workers tribute by David Gilmore — Costa Mesa, California, USA 🇺🇸
This 50-by-20-foot mural turns the side of STRUT Bar & Club into a stage. David Gilmore painted a goddess-like Dolly among magnolias and doves in 2021, after her $1 million gift helped fund COVID-19 vaccine research. The venue dedicated the wall to frontline healthcare workers.
🔗 Follow **David Gilmore on Instagram**
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### 🌈 Dolly Parton and RuPaul by Gus Cutty — Asheville, North Carolina, USA 🇺🇸
Gus Cutty painted the Dolly half beside Beauty Parade on Haywood Road in 2018, then added RuPaul in 2021. Seen together, the two enormous Southern icons turn a brick wall into a welcome.
🔗 Follow **Gus Cutty on Instagram**
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### 🚪 Dolly on the Lytle House gate — Chicago, Illinois, USA 🇺🇸
Michelle and Robyn Lytle painted Dolly on the gate outside their Edgewater event space after the surface kept attracting graffiti. Michelle chose a musician she had loved since childhood and admired for supporting LGBTQ people. A practical response to tagging became a neighborhood landmark.
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### 🌺 Dolly by MuckRock — Nashville, Tennessee, USA 🇺🇸
Jules Muck, who signs her work MuckRock, painted this portrait on Blue Door Framing in 2020. Look closely at the pale lettering in Dolly’s hair: it spells “Nashville” and “MuckRock.” Poppies spill around the corner onto the front of the building.
🔗 Follow **Jules Muck on Instagram**
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### 💖 “Always Love” by Patrick Ganino — Frisco, Texas, USA 🇺🇸
Patrick Ganino’s Dolly anchors the pink “Always Love” wall at Apple Blvd Boutique. Hair, butterflies and oversized letters turn the building into a walk-in piece of pop graphics—and a ready-made street portrait. The mural guide credits the photograph to Carol Riell Photography.
🔗 Follow **Patrick Ganino on Instagram**
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### ✨ Dolly at Sam Flax by Sabrina Shumaker — Orlando, Florida, USA 🇺🇸
Sabrina Shumaker finished this sharp-edged, high-color portrait at Sam Flax on International Women’s Day in March 2022, as shown in her dated studio post. The close crop and graphic shadows make it feel halfway between a mural, a poster and a stage light.
🔗 Follow **Sabrina Shumaker on Instagram**
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### 🌼 The lost Dolly mural by Bryan Deese — Nashville, Tennessee, USA 🇺🇸
Bryan Deese painted this flower-ringed Dolly at the Stop-N-Shop in The Nations in March 2020. The wall was normally used for temporary concert murals, and this portrait was eventually painted over. That impermanence is part of the medium: street art can carry a memory, then survive only in photographs.
🔗 Follow **Bryan Deese on Instagram**
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## Which one is your favorite?
