Background
Mattie O'Kelley was born on March 30, 1908, in Bank County, Georgia, United States, as the seventh of eight children, and grew up on a corn and cotton farm.
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1982
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1983
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1986
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1989
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1991
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1995
Mattie O'Kelley was born on March 30, 1908, in Bank County, Georgia, United States, 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 Mattie's 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. 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.
Then she get acquainted with the art dealer and collector Robert Bishop, who helped her to promote her paintings. 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. In the 1980's she published several books, ''A Winter Place,'' ''From the Hills of Georgia: An Autobiography in Paintings'' and ''Circus.'' She also illustrated Ruth Yaffe Radin’s "A Winter Place." In addition, O’Kelley’s work was also featured in calendars and on a cover of Life magazine. 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.
