Lot 1048: Mattie Lou O'Kelley (American, 1908-1989)

Winter skaters
oil on canvas
signed and dated lower right M.L. O'Kelley Feb 1981.
23 1/2 x 31 1/2in (60cm x 82cm)

Emily Mattie Lou O'Kelley (1908-1989) was born in rural Banks County, Georgia and grew up on a farm, the seventh of eight children. Mattie attended school through the ninth grade, working also on the farm and in the home. She later also worked in a local yarn mill. At the age of 50, Mattie retired from the mill and ordered canvas and oils from the Sears and Roebuck Catalog and began painting, in a pointilist style nostalgic landscape scenes and portraits of her rural childhood.