Mattie Lou O’Kelley (American, 1908-1997)
Born and raised on a farm in Maysville, Georgia, Mattie Lou O’Kelley’s bucolic landscapes reflect her contentment and love of place. The hobby of painting, taken up at the age of 60, made her an unexpectedly celebrated self-taught artist. It began when the Director of the High Museum in Atlanta, Georgia selected several O’Kelley pictures for sale in its gift shop. In 1975 he showed her work to Robert Bishop, an art dealer, curator and collector, later the director of the American Museum of Folk Art in New York. Mr. Bishop found O’Kelley’s memory paintings of rural Southern life “an exquisite recorder of time and place”. He drove 50 miles to the artist’s one-room cabin in Maysville. They became friends and he brought her work to the attention of museums and other collectors. Her work can be seen in institutions including the American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; and High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA.
Information courtesy of Rago Arts, October 2019.