Cow Jump over the Mone1978Sheet: 19 1/2 x 25 1/4 " (49.5 x 64.1 cm)
Frame: 27 x 32 3/4 x 1 7/8 " (68.6 x 83.2 x 4.8 cm)Crayon, colored pencil, and pencil on paperGift of Judith Alexander in honor of Lee Kogan1997.10.10
1538292396Nellie Mae RoweDrawings© Estate of Nellie Mae Rowe / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkViningsViningsUnited StatesGeorgiaWorks on PaperVinings
I draw things you ain’t never seen born into the world and they ain’t been born yet. They will be seen some day, but I will be gone. —Nellie Mae Rowe
Nellie Mae Rowe was a brilliant traveler of the imagination, whose inner eye contemplated a lush world teeming with saturated color, organic flowing forms, and spiritual reverberations. Her father was a basketmaker and ironworker, and her mother was a quiltmaker. Rowe’s own artistic nature was evident early in life when, as a child, she fashioned dolls from the family’s laundry. A devout woman, she was married at sixteen, widowed, and remarried, working much of her life as a domestic. After the death of her second husband, Henry Rowe, she began to embellish her home and yard—her "playhouse"—with sculptures, drawings, and handmade dolls to dispel the encroaching loneliness, using conventional and unorthodox materials such as chewing gum, clothing remnants and T-shirts, wigs, costume jewelry, Magic Markers, and jewel-tone crayons.
Rowe’s imagery is largely derived from the natural world, but it is also deeply rooted in vernacular culture and populated with folk figures and references. Cow Jump over the Mone is one of three significant autobiographical drawings in which she used the moon metaphorically to reflect upon herself. The title, placed within the glowing orb, derives from the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle," but it is an ancient and mythic trope. The cow/female hybrid is a deity of maternal love, nurturing and sexual. When she jumps over the moon, she is filled with joyful dance and music. She is also a gentle companion through the transition from life to death. In this vision, Rowe has appended her own head, sporting a smart blue pillbox hat on top of the body of a large black cow. The hybrid creature is flying over a radiant moon, dividing the spheres of earth and heaven. Above, the sky is a phantasmagoria of pattern, color, and design—a paradise awaiting Rowe’s arrival.
The works that Nellie Mae Rowe created in the last years of her life, and especially throughout 1982, hint at her impending death. There seems to be a freedom—or escape—from pain and worldly considerations as Rowe strives to rise above her physical self or nestle within her spiritual doppelgänger. At the end of her life, Rowe’s mood evolved from puzzlement and worry to acceptance and even joy at the prospect of entering a wonderful "promised land."
Stacy C. Hollander, "Cow Jump over the Mone," exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgPAINTINGCow Jump over the Mone is one of three significant pictures by Nellie Mae Rowe in which she used the moon metaphorically to express feelings of self-worth and faith. The title, discreetly placed within the moon, is from the second line of “Hey Diddle Diddle,” a nursery rhyme dating from the seventeenth century that is often interpreted to allude to the court of England’s Queen Elizabeth. Rowe’s reference is not veiled political criticism but a depiction of herself—in the form of a large figure with a cow body and a woman’s head, held high—flying over a moon set against a brilliant blue sky. This African American woman, born into a segregated and restricted way of life, experienced dramatic social changes following the civil rights and women’s movements. These factors, combined with her strong, innate sense of identity, reinforced her feelings of liberation and transcendence.
Rowe was born in 1900 in Fayette, Georgia, to George and Luella Swanson Williams, both of whom were skilled craftspeople—he an expert basketmaker, she an experienced quiltmaker. Although she had an early interest in drawing and fashioning cloth dolls, it was not until the death of her second husband, Henry Rowe, in 1948, that she turned her full attention to artmaking, including the decoration of her home and yard in Vinings. She worked with readily available materials, such as colored pencils, pencils, felt-tipped pens, and paper for her drawings, and Styrofoam food trays, wallpaper sample books, wood, and chewing gum for her sculptures. Rowe’s saturated works draw on memories of her southern environment and are imbued with life-affirming spiritual verve.
Lee Kogan, "Cow Jump over the Mone," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 396.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org19781978 1997 10 1
I draw things you ain’t never seen born into the world and they ain’t been born yet. They will be seen some day, but I will be gone. —Nellie Mae Rowe
Nellie Mae Rowe was a brilliant traveler of the imagination, whose inner eye contemplated a lush world teeming with saturated color, organic flowing forms, and spiritual reverberations. Her father was a basketmaker and ironworker, and her mother was a quiltmaker. Rowe’s own artistic nature was evident early in life when, as a child, she fashioned dolls from the family’s laundry. A devout woman, she was married at sixteen, widowed, and remarried, working much of her life as a domestic. After the death of her second husband, Henry Rowe, she began to embellish her home and yard—her "playhouse"—with sculptures, drawings, and handmade dolls to dispel the encroaching loneliness, using conventional and unorthodox materials such as chewing gum, clothing remnants and T-shirts, wigs, costume jewelry, Magic Markers, and jewel-tone crayons.
Rowe’s imagery is largely derived from the natural world, but it is also deeply rooted in vernacular culture and populated with folk figures and references. Cow Jump over the Mone is one of three significant autobiographical drawings in which she used the moon metaphorically to reflect upon herself. The title, placed within the glowing orb, derives from the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle," but it is an ancient and mythic trope. The cow/female hybrid is a deity of maternal love, nurturing and sexual. When she jumps over the moon, she is filled with joyful dance and music. She is also a gentle companion through the transition from life to death. In this vision, Rowe has appended her own head, sporting a smart blue pillbox hat on top of the body of a large black cow. The hybrid creature is flying over a radiant moon, dividing the spheres of earth and heaven. Above, the sky is a phantasmagoria of pattern, color, and design—a paradise awaiting Rowe’s arrival.
The works that Nellie Mae Rowe created in the last years of her life, and especially throughout 1982, hint at her impending death. There seems to be a freedom—or escape—from pain and worldly considerations as Rowe strives to rise above her physical self or nestle within her spiritual doppelgänger. At the end of her life, Rowe’s mood evolved from puzzlement and worry to acceptance and even joy at the prospect of entering a wonderful "promised land."
Stacy C. Hollander, "Cow Jump over the Mone," exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.orgPAINTINGCow Jump over the Mone is one of three significant pictures by Nellie Mae Rowe in which she used the moon metaphorically to express feelings of self-worth and faith. The title, discreetly placed within the moon, is from the second line of “Hey Diddle Diddle,” a nursery rhyme dating from the seventeenth century that is often interpreted to allude to the court of England’s Queen Elizabeth. Rowe’s reference is not veiled political criticism but a depiction of herself—in the form of a large figure with a cow body and a woman’s head, held high—flying over a moon set against a brilliant blue sky. This African American woman, born into a segregated and restricted way of life, experienced dramatic social changes following the civil rights and women’s movements. These factors, combined with her strong, innate sense of identity, reinforced her feelings of liberation and transcendence.
Rowe was born in 1900 in Fayette, Georgia, to George and Luella Swanson Williams, both of whom were skilled craftspeople—he an expert basketmaker, she an experienced quiltmaker. Although she had an early interest in drawing and fashioning cloth dolls, it was not until the death of her second husband, Henry Rowe, in 1948, that she turned her full attention to artmaking, including the decoration of her home and yard in Vinings. She worked with readily available materials, such as colored pencils, pencils, felt-tipped pens, and paper for her drawings, and Styrofoam food trays, wallpaper sample books, wood, and chewing gum for her sculptures. Rowe’s saturated works draw on memories of her southern environment and are imbued with life-affirming spiritual verve.
Lee Kogan, "Cow Jump over the Mone," in Stacy C. Hollander, American Anthem: Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum (New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with American Folk Art Museum, 2001), 396.
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.
To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org