Untitled (Self-Portrait as a Little Girl Doll) - High Museum of Art

Untitled (Self-Portrait as a Little Girl Doll)

Nellie Mae Rowe

American, 1900–1982

A cloth doll with green skin and shoulder-length brown hair wearing glasses, an orange shirt, and a watch sits in a wooden rocking chair.

Details

Title

Untitled (Self-Portrait as a Little Girl Doll)

Artist/Maker

Nellie Mae Rowe (American, 1900–1982)

Date

1978–1982

Medium

Cloth, fiber stuffing, glass, plastic, paint, yarn, wig, metal, and folding chair

Dimensions

24 x 26 x 26 inches

Credit

Norfolk Southern Collection of Self-Taught Art

Accession #

1996.154

On View

Currently not on view

Dolls were a fixture in Nellie Mae Rowe’s creative life from her youth."I bet I wasn't 10 years old when I made my first doll. Sometimes when I ought to have been in the fields, I'd hide and go make dolls. I'd take up all the dirty clothes, tie them up, pack their heads full of soft stockings, and make eyes for them. I made some to look like people,” she said. Later in life, Rowe made this self-portrait of herself as a young girl, as well as many others which she sometimes affectionately called her children.

Image Copyright

© Estate of Nellie Mae Rowe/High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

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