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Please Let Me Be

Folk and Self-Taught Art
A front-facing figure drawn with pencil and blue marker against a white background with blue and black borders; “boy” and “please let me be” written in marker.

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Please Let Me Be

Artwork Details

Artist/Maker

Nellie Mae Rowe
American, 1900–1982

Date

1947

Medium

Marker and pencil on mounted book page

Accession #

2003.222

Dimensions

Please contact the Museum for more information.

Location

Currently Out on Loan

Description

Rowe said she drew a little here and there before her employers, the Smiths, were both deceased, and this work dates from that early period. The sorrowful blue figure at the picture’s center and his plea for mercy may be a tribute to her father, who passed away in 1945. Her second husband, Henry Rowe, died the following year and suffered from what may have been a form of dementia, so the work could also be an empathetic message for him.

Credit

Gift of Judith Alexander

Image Copyright

© Estate of Nellie Mae Rowe/High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

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