Real Girl
Zoom and Share Buttons
Object Details
Artist/Maker
Nellie Mae Rowe, American, 1900–1982
Date
1980
Medium
Color photograph, crayon, pen, and pencil on cardboard
Dimensions
14 x 11 inches
Credit
Gift of Judith Alexander
Accession #
2003.212
Image Copyright
© Estate of Nellie Mae Rowe/High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Description
Real Girl is one of at least a dozen drawings in which Rowe embedded a picture of herself, embracing various visible dimensions of her identity and their intersections. As she told one reporter in 1979, “I am black and I love my blackness.” Here, she has placed her signature at the literal heart of her composition under an image of herself in front of her home holding a doll. She asserts that she is a “real girl” and uses traditionally feminine forms like the color bright pink, lacy edges, flowers, and the heart arabesque to complete this valentine to herself.