Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection Audio Exhibition
Nellie Mae Rowe (American, 1900–1982), Pink Pig, mid-20th century, crayon on paper, 16 1/16 x 20 1/16 in. (40.8 x 50.9 cm), Collection of Richard Rosenthal, © Nellie Mae Rowe, Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Verbal Description
Hello, my name is Franck Mercurio, and I am the museum’s publications editor. I will be reading the verbal description for Pink Pig by Nellie Mae Rowe in Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection.
Nellie Mae Rowe was an American artist who lived from 1900 to 1982. Her drawing, Pink Pig, from the mid-twentieth century, is crayon on paper. It is in the collection of Richard Rosenthal.
Pink Pig is a rectangular crayon on paper drawing measuring 16 and one-sixteenth by 20 and one-sixteenth inches or 40.8 by 50.9 centimeters. This brightly colored image fills the paper with a complex composition of flattened forms. Nellie Mae Rowe centers her picture on a pink pig on a mint green background framed by a heart outlined in narrow black, red, pink, green, and blue stripes. Also inside the heart is a tree, a bird resting on the pig’s stomach, and an anvil-shaped structure somewhat resembling a dresser with drawers along the top.
Surrounding the heart are several animals and one human figure. Starting in the upper right corner and working clockwise, we see a small yellow dog, an orange cat, and a relatively large, drooping blue flower bud extending from the top of the heart and bending toward the right side. Perched next to the bud are a magenta bird and a black crow. In the lower right corner, we see an orange dog, a turquoise donkey, and an unidentifiable yellow animal with short legs and a long, tapered tail. A peach-colored dog is in the lower center at the point of the heart. At the lower left, we see a white and red creature that may be a goat, a female human figure with a white and red peacock perched on her head, and a lavender, blue and red tree extending up the image’s left side. Also, on the left side, a black animal, perhaps a dog, looks straight out of the picture. Finally, what may be a tan dog, a blue goat, and a red lizard-like creature are in the upper left. The background is a mixture of brown, tan, turquoise, and yellow shapes.
Label Text
Hello, my name is Franck Mercurio, and I am the museum’s publications editor. I will be reading the label for Pink Pig by Nellie Mae Rowe in Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection.
Nellie Mae Rowe was an American artist who lived from 1900 to 1982. Her drawing, Pink Pig, from the mid- twentieth century, is crayon on paper. It is in the collection of Richard Rosenthal.
Nellie Mae Rowe’s childhood was marked by her family’s economic hardships that forced her to pick cotton from a young age. First married at age sixteen, Rowe moved with her husband to Vinings, Georgia, where she worked as a domestic servant. Her responsibilities left little time for creative pursuits. Finally, at age 48, after the death of her second husband, Rowe embraced her independence and the imagination of her childhood.
Rowe first embellished her yard with handmade dolls and ornaments before she began to draw. Her whimsical compositions feature animals and other motifs drawn in saturated, jewel-like colors. Here, the calm simplicity of the pig enclosed in a heart is in contrast to the rest of the drawing crowded with animals, a human figure, and a large flowering tree.