I never thought I'd ever lay eyes on (much less own) Mattie Lou O'Kelly's Thanksgiving print. But guess what? I found it matted & framed under non-glare glass in a classified newspaper & drove up into the Shenandoah Valley to get it. The seller also sold me her America dish collection. The print is the most awesome thing I've laid eyes on in quite awhile. It's such a happy picture & a wish come true for me. I wonder if Pfz commissioned other artists to create art for other patterns. Does anyone know of other work done by Ms. O'Kelly?
Also got a real treat seeing all the trees changing color. There's something about being in the foothills of the Blue Ridge, to me it's like getting closer to God. It was a good day!
I agree with your comment about the leaves. I had to drive through the New Jersey Pine Barrens to see one of my student teachers and I had such a smile on my face glancing around at all the colors. It really is an uplifting experience for us lucky enough to live in an area with 4 seasons.
Congratulations, Sonnja! My Thanksgiving print is one of my favorite America items. Even after all these years, I still see something new in it each time I look at it. I have several Mattie Lou books I purchased off eBay that I enjoy looking through from time to time.
We've been treated to a spectacular fall display here at the edge of the Ozarks. As Susan said, it just lifts your spirits, doesn't it?
Hi Dev...congrats on the Mattie print, those seem to seldom come on ebay any more and if they do, they go quickly! The print will be a nice addition for your Thanksgiving holiday! I hope it's a good one!
Thanks for the interesting link Deb! The lady I bought the print from thought Mattie Lou was from VA. For some reason I thought she was still living & so I guess her paintings are worth more now that she's gone. Since she never married I wonder where all her original paintings could be?
Copied this obit from the New York Times website - I love Google:)
Mattie Lou O'Kelley, 89, Georgia Folk Artist By MEL GUSSOW Published: Thursday, July 31, 1997
Mattie Lou O'Kelley, who began painting as a hobby at the age of 60 and became a celebrated folk artist of rural Southern life, died on Saturday at her home in Decatur, Ga. She was 89. In her art, she pictured nostalgic views of the Georgia countryside she knew in her childhood in the early part of the 20th century: barns, farmers, animals and gardens filled with flowers and vegetables. The titles of Miss O'Kelley's paintings reflect her spirit as well as their subject matter: ''Papa Feeding the Stock at 4 A.M.,'' ''Bringing in the Night Water'' and a self-portrait, ''Mattie in the Morning Glories.'' Her work is in various museum collections, including the American Museum of Folk Art and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. Robert Bishop, an art dealer and collector and later the director of the American Museum of Folk Art (in Manhattan), is credited with discovering Miss O'Kelley, a story he recounted in 1989 in the introduction to the book ''Mattie Lou O'Kelley: Folk Artist. By Mattie Herself.'' In 1975, he was in Atlanta to lecture about quilts at the High Museum, and Gudmund Vigtel, the director of the museum, told him about a ''painting lady'' from Maysville, Ga., who had traveled to Atlanta by bus to show him her pictures. Mr. Vigtel had purchased one for the museum. It was, said Mr. Bishop, ''a rich, bountiful still life with a basket of lettuce and vegetables and fruit on a vibrant aqua-and-white-checkered tablecloth.'' Several other O'Kelley pictures were on sale in the museum's gift shop. Mr. Bishop was astonished. Here was, he said, ''a true American primitive -- self-taught, an exquisite recorder of time and place.'' And ''most compelling of all,'' he added, an artist with ''a unique vision.'' He immediately canceled his flight back to Detroit, where he was director of publications at the Henry Ford Museum, and drove 50 miles to find the artist, tracking her down in her one-room cabin in sleepy Maysville. They became friends and he brought her work to the attention of museums and other collectors. She was born in Maysville, in northeast Georgia, as the seventh of eight children, and grew up on a corn and cotton farm. For financial reasons, she was forced to end her schooling in the ninth grade and spent the remainder of her childhood on the family farm. When her father died in 1943, she moved to the town, where she worked as a seamstress, cook and waitress. After she retired in 1968 at 60, she began to paint. ''I had always wanted to paint,'' she said. ''Now I had the time.'' In 1976, she was honored with a Governor's Award in the Arts for the state of Georgia. As her fame spread, she was written about in newspapers and national magazines and television cameras arrived on her doorstep. When Mr. Bishop became head of the Museum of American Folk Art, he suggested that Miss O'Kelley move to New York. Briefly she lived in Manhattan and painted urban landscapes. Mr. Bishop said that the crowds and the cold winter made New York ''a place from which to escape.'' Eventually, she decided to return to the South, moving first to Florida and then in 1983 back to Georgia, making her home in Decatur, where she lived the rest of her life. Mr. Bishop died in 1991. Miss O'Kelley has no survivors. In the 1980's she published several books, ''A Winter Place,'' ''From the Hills of Georgia: An Autobiography in Paintings'' and ''Circus.'' Her art also appeared on calendars, and in 1980 she had a picture of a cat on the cover of Life magazine. One of her principal collectors was T. Marshall Hahn, a retired executive with Georgia-Pacific. Mr. Hahn remembered Miss O'Kelley visiting him on his farm and painting in his yard. Wearing a sunbonnet, she sat at a card table, and sketched, flat on the table, gradually turning a pencil drawing into a painting. She also wrote poetry, which was as homely as her canvases: Now my one room house has only me, I never roam, No lessons have I. But I paint And paint And stay at home. A version of this obituary; biography appeared in print on Thursday, July 31, 1997, on section B page 6 of the New York edition.
Great Information Deb, very interesting...Maybe this should be put in the newsletter, for those who don't get on the computer! Thanks for the research!
& a wish come true for me. I wonder if Pfz commissioned other artists to create art for other patterns. Does anyone know of other work done by Ms. O'Kelly? 