Untitled (Nellie and Henry)
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Object Details
Artist/Maker
Nellie Mae Rowe, American, 1900–1982
Date
1978–1982
Medium
Crayon, colored pencil, and pencil on paper
Dimensions
19 x 23 1/2 inches
Credit
Gift of Judith Alexander
Accession #
2002.244
Image Copyright
© Estate of Nellie Mae Rowe/High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Description
Rowe offers her late husband Henry Rowe a seat as he looks up into a clear blue sky, about to make his transition to heaven. Her inclusion of the Playhouse both honors their lives in the home they built together and also foretells how she would transform it into the stage for her artistic renaissance. Although Rowe mourned her husband, she was also relieved to be free from domestic duties. As she told one interviewer quite bluntly, “My husband died in’48 and I ain’t been bothered with marrying or cooking since then—whew, child, I couldn’t stand it.”