Georgia Speller (1931–1988) was an African American artist known for her colorful, dynamic drawings and paintings on paper.
Early life Speller grew up the daughter of a blacksmith in northeast Mississippi, in a town called Aberdeen. She learned to draw at a young age, but did not hone her craft until she was encouraged to do so by her husband, artist Henry Speller.
Career Speller's evolution as an artist alongside her husband was outlined in an interview:
Most of Speller's oeuvre comprises orgiastic, ecstatic scenes of revelry in nature. These orgies often show the Moon and Sun simultaneously in the sky, which has been interpreted as implying a duration, not an instant. Women are depicted as mutually benefiting or dominant intimate partners. Art historian Xenia Zed saw in Speller's work "the revisionist feminist of the nineties; the sexual exhibitionists of the sixties and seventies; the romantic/erotic/pornographic gaze; the symbolic that can range from thoughts on African retention to psychoanalysis."
Speller's work often includes architectural paintings and drawings of houses, train stations, and cityscapes.
Collections Works by Speller are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,Head of the Penitentiary, 1986, by Speller, at Met Museum web site the High Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the National Gallery of Art.National Gallery of Art Acquires Forty Works by African American Artists from Souls Grown Deep Foundation, press release from National Gallery of Art, 28 Dec 2020
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