Born: 31 January 1873, United States
Died: 1953
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Laura Atkinson, Laura Pope, Laura Forrester
The following is shared from The New Georgia Encyclopedia, which allows the use of protected materials for noncommercial educational purposes.
Numerous self-taught artists emerged in early-twentieth-century Georgia. In Meigs, a small town in Thomas County, in south Georgia, Laura Pope Forester began making concrete figures, many commemorating important women in history and literature, including Nancy Hart, a heroine of the Revolutionary War (1775-83), and Scarlett O’Hara, the protagonist of Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone With the Wind (1936). Forester’s “Mrs. Pope’s Museum” in Thomas County, which reopened in 2018 thanks to local preservationists, was one of Georgia’s earliest outdoor self-taught art environments.