Mary Greene. Quilts Hanging In The Sun.
c. 1990s.
Signed.
Oil on canvas.
Artist writing on back.
Excellent condition.
Painting is 24"w x 18"h.
Frame is 26.5"w x 20.5"h.
Provenance: The Mike Dale Collection.
Est. $600-$800.
Ship: $55

Mary Greene was born in Homer, Georgia, on May 17, 1929, to William Oscar Brock, Sr., and Ruby Mae Savage Brock. The daughter of a sharecropper, Greene's early experiences of life on the farm during the Great Depression and beyond provided her with a wealth of material for her paintings. While times were hard, there is an unabashed optimism in her works. Her simple, colorful, completely self-taught style is both honest and cheerful. As much writer and historian as painter, many of Greene's works include long, detailed messages on the back which describe how things were done in earlier, but certainly not forgotten, times.

On the back of Quilts Hanging in the Sun, she wrote, in part: "May, beautiful May, when God's love makes all things new…and Granny's lavender blooming in purples for putting in the new straw tick beds…All the quilts are hung in the sun and then stored in quilt boxes with lavender, marigold seed, and rose petals until winter the worn ones are cut up and borders sewn on them for baby blankets….Life is so different now but God and his love is just the same and he guides us and loves us God bless you."
On the back of Barn Dance, Greene wrote, in part: "Barn Dance in the good old days when all the corn and cotton and beans were planted and the Spring moon was full the people had a barn dance an lots of fun and let all the steam off and many couples met and even got married it was a good thing for people there wasn't many cars no TV just hard work and this was for fun and they combined work with play they had corn shucking and barn raisings and even house raisings for newlyweds and quilting Bs but that was the best community thing everybody working together in Godly love."
Greene did not begin painting until later in life, in her 60s. In the 1990s, then-Georgia Governor Zell Miller recognized Greene's work. One of her paintings, The Express, was selected for inclusion in Georgia's State Art Collection, an extensive chronicle of work created by Georgia artists from the 1970s to the 1990s. Each piece in the collection was juried by a panel of experts. Greene's work also found its way into the private collections of former President Jimmy Carter and the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Greene died at age 86 in 2015.