Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe

Nellie Mae Rowe
American, 1900–1982
Untitled (Really Free!), 1967–1976
Marker and crayon on book page
Gift of Judith Alexander, 2002.239Rowe was a deeply spiritual person who believed that God had bestowed her with artistic abilities, saying, “This the talent that he gave me and I have to use it.” She hung onto the frontispiece of Really Free!, a pamphlet reproducing the Gospel according to John and printed by the Bible Society in 1967, transforming it with her elegant signature. The way that she envelopes the phrase “Really Free!” with her name makes this relatively simple work, which inspired the title of this exhibition, a bold statement about how she expressed her personal freedom through art in the final years of her life.

Nellie Mae Rowe
American, 1900–1982
When I Was a Little Girl, 1978
Crayon, marker, colored pencil, and pencil on paper
Purchase with Folk Art Acquisition Fund, 2002.73Rowe captures the thwarted artistic efforts of her childhood through a series of vignettes in this work: one version of herself as a child floats across the composition, attaching drawings to the walls of her bedroom. Because her homemade adhesive attracted rats, Rowe was punished, and her mother can be seen holding a reed in one hand and a sweet fruit for her daughter in the other at the picture’s center. One of the dolls that Rowe made from dirty laundry appears at right, waiting to be played with and ultimately undone on wash day.

Nellie Mae Rowe
American, 1900–1982
What it is, 1978–1982
Crayon, colored pencil, and pencil on paper
Gift of Judith Alexander, 2003.215Rowe visualizes herself as a child, confidently walking down Paces Ferry Road, her ribbons forming a kind of halo as she goes. “What it is” is a popular greeting—akin to “What’s up?”—but Rowe also used it as an artistic statement that reflected the mysteries she was content to let remain unsolved in her work. “Most of the things that I draw, I don’t know what they are by name. People say, ‘Nellie, what is that?’ I say I don’t know, it is what it is. That is all I know. But I know one thing, I draw what is in my mind.”

Nellie Mae Rowe
American, 1900–1982
Untitled (Something that Ain’t Been Born Yet), 1978
Crayon and pencil on ledger paper
Gift of Judith Alexander, 2003.218For inspiration, Rowe tapped into her subconscious in ways that the Surrealists had given credence to decades earlier, copying visions as she remembered them from her dreams and engaging in automatic drawing. As she described it, “I may make a start with a straight mark, and it will come to me what I want to make.” The way she followed her line into mysterious forms, testing whether they could become a tree, an animal, an elaborately dressed person, can be seen clearly in this work’s detailed but fluid composition.

Nellie Mae Rowe
American, 1900–1982
Untitled (Atlanta’s Missing Children, Figure with Headdress), 1981
Crayon, gouache, pen, and pencil on paper
Gift of Judith Alexander, 2003.213Rowe’s connection with childhood and her longing for children of her own might have played a role in her decision to depict the Atlanta Child Murders—a series of abductions and violent attacks of nearly thirty people (most of them Black children or adolescents) that took place between 1979 and 1981 in Atlanta. As opposed to visually depicting these murders, Rowe addressed the violence in code, using animals and indeterminate vignettes. The figure in the center of the drawing menacingly pulling back a trench-coat-like cape like a flasher may be a more direct reference to the sexual abuse that many of the victims suffered.

Nellie Mae Rowe
American, 1900–1982
Untitled (Blue and Pink Doll), before 1978
Cloth, yarn, fiber stuffing, acrylic wig, and buttons
Gift of Judith Alexander, 2003.243Rowe’s earlier memories of making art included the dolls she created for the amusement of herself and her siblings. This doll is atypical, standing apart from the others seen in the show, because of how she crocheted its body. The indigo-blue yarn and magenta fabric she chose for it matches the vibrant color schemes she favored in her later drawing.