Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe

 

Really Free: The Radical Art of Nellie Mae Rowe

 

Untitled (DeMura Shoebox Collage)


Flattened shoebox with ornate purple, green, and yellow-green paisley pattern; three color pictures of interior of artist’s home, one of artist inside home, and one of home exterior.

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Object Details


Artist/Maker

Nellie Mae Rowe, American, 1900–1982

Date

before 1978

Medium

Color photographs on flattened shoebox

Dimensions

18 1/2 x 13 inches

Credit

Gift of Judith Alexander

Accession #

2003.234

Image Copyright

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

Description

Rowe used a flattened shoebox as the backdrop for a display of casual snapshots that an unidentified visitor took of the decorated interior and exterior of her home, which she called her Playhouse. The shoebox’s design sets off the visual of the patterned textiles and objects that Rowe, seen in the middle-left image, spread and hung throughout her space. In the bottom-left photograph, two of her sculptures made from chewing gum are visible, including a mustachioed cat much like Untitled (Chewing-Gum Sculpture) on view here.