By Mark Woolsey
A Cobb County resident for much of her adult life. Nellie Mae Rowe’s path echoes the life of many African-American woman in the early 20th century.
Born on a farm in Fayetteville in 1900, she learned to work hard early. Moving along the way to Vinings, she married twice and lost both husbands. Rowe worked for three decades as a domestic-one of a very few jobs open to women of color back then.
Typical of the times.
Not so typical, Rowe made an unusual decision for an African American woman in the late 1940s.
“She was basically done with men,” says Jennie Eldredge, deciding instead to focus exclusively on her art and draw on a couple of pensions. “She also ended her domestic work with a family she’d been with a long time.”
Eldredge grew to appreciate Rowe”s talent after joining the museum nine years ago, spotting her work at the High and other local museums.
“Then about three years ago, we were gifted an original piece of her artwork by a local family,” she says.
“So it just kind of came to be the next logical focus on our temporary exhibit space,” says Eldredge, who pulled together the exhibit of a dozen high-quality prints and the original as well.
In an era of Black women mainly ignored or depicted as stereotypes in media, she painted in a radically reimagined style.
As the Smithsonian art experts described her in a federal publication “She depicted friends, neighbors and herself in drawings and hand-colored photographs, confident images of Black beauty and free-spirited joy.”
Rowe also painted many dream images ,” says Eldredge. “She said images would come to her in the night. She had an innate ability for composition, the use of color. Composition and the way she portrayed objects in action is very accessible”
Also accessible was what she called “the playhouse,” her actual residence along Paces Ferry Road which was festooned with a large collection of her art of many varieties.
“And people would bring her things,” says Eldredge. Everything from a car part to wads of chewing gum. She’d turn some of them into compelling sculptures and display pieces.
Her quilting was of note as well.
She would put together dolls, sew facial features on,equip them with clothing and place the completed dolls-sometimes fanciful- for folks to gaze upon-and look they did.
She gave frequent tours of her abode.
The original playhouse was torn down after her death, but a miniature copy is on-site.for display.
After laboring in obscurity for decades, she acquired an agent. Showings-and acclaim-began to come her way.
This instance was one example of her growing status.
“(Former first lady) Nancy Reagan had her design the White House Christmas card one year, “ said Eldredge.
Cancer claimed her life in 1982.
The exhibit will be at the Smyrna History Museum through September of 2028.
The museum is at 2861 Atlanta Road SE, Hours are 10 a.m-4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.