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Nellie's Birthday

1981
Not on view
Filled with bright patterns, verdant vegetation, stylized figures, and somewhat indistinct, hybridized animals, Rowe’s fanciful and exuberant imagery offers a view into a private pictorial universe. Nellie’s Birthday exemplifies her unique conflation of fantasy and autobiography. The artist executed this drawing to commemorate her eighty-first birthday, which, owing to her cancer diagnosis earlier that year, she thought would be her last. On the left side of the composition, a Tree of Life (a recurring motif in her work) appears near a figure looking over a grave marker bearing Rowe’s name.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Nellie's Birthday
  • Artist: Nellie Mae Rowe (American, Fayetteville, Georgia 1900–1982 Smyrna, Georgia)
  • Date: 1981
  • Medium: Colored pencil, crayon, and graphite on paper
  • Dimensions: 18 1/16 × 23 7/8 in. (45.9 × 60.7 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Gift of Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection, 2014
  • Object Number: 2014.548.31
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

More Artwork

More Artwork
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Woman Scolding Her Companion, Nellie Mae Rowe American, Oil pastel, crayon, colored pencil, black porous-point pen, and graphite on board
Woman Scolding Her Companion
Nellie Mae Rowe
1981
Empty Chair, Nellie Mae Rowe American, Crayon, wax crayon and graphite with pastel on paper
Empty Chair
Nellie Mae Rowe
1981
Humpy (Hubert Humphrey), Nellie Mae Rowe American, Wax crayon and graphite with red porous-point pen on paper
Humpy (Hubert Humphrey)
Nellie Mae Rowe
1978
Atlanta's Missing Children, Nellie Mae Rowe American, Commercial paint, crayon, oil pastel, graphite, ink marker, and cut and pasted paper on paperboard
Atlanta's Missing Children
Nellie Mae Rowe
1981
I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold, Charles Demuth American, Oil, graphite, ink, and gold leaf on paperboard (Upson board)
I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold
Charles Demuth
1928

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