Reclusive and quirky Mattie Lou O'Kelley produced some of the most enduring and spectacular folk paintings in America's history during the last three decades of her life. O'Kelley was born in Maysville, Georgia in 1908. The seventh of eight children, she grew up on her family farm and only completed school through the ninth grade. Never married, she worked as a seamstress, cook, and textile mill worker; after she retired in her fifties, she began painting her memories of rural Southern life. O'Kelley was befriended by Robert Bishop, a New York art collector and later the director of the American Folk Art Museum in New York, after the director of Atlanta's High Museum showed him some of her works. Bishop became a vocal and enthusiastic collector of her memory paintings, and her fame spread throughout the 1970's. She received a Governor's Award in the Arts for the state of Georgia in 1976, and a painting of hers was featured on the cover of "Life " magazine in June 1980. She published five books showcasing her paintings in the 1980's. In 1983, Ms. O'Kelley moved to Decatur, Georgia, where she lived until her death at the age of 89 in 1997. In 2002, Mr. and Mrs. T. Marshall Hahn donated 24 of Ms. O'Kelley's paintings to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Her works can also be found in numerous museums, including the American Folk Art Museum and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta. This page was last updated with new works on August 1, 2010.
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