WebAnna Mary Robertson Moses (September 7, 1860 December 13, 1961), or Grandma Moses, was an American folk artist. An art collector purchased her paintings from a drug store window and more from her home in 1938. The landscape is therefore not an accurate rendering, but more of a "daydream" made visible of how Moses felt whilst living here. It is important to remember that life here is harsh as well as celebratory, and perhaps that it is indeed the great effort undertaken in preparations that in turn brings appreciation for the results. In this way, the inclusion of her paintings with such advertisements demonstrates how Moses' works became patriotic symbols and even occasionally propagandist tools in the hands of marketers. Upon reflection in her final years, she said that the overarching feeling of her whole life was similar to the feeling she had after any productive hard working day, satisfied. Her father ran a flax mill and was a farmer. Her name was a now household word in America, and after the end of World War II her reputation had spread abroad as well. Kallir staged the artist's first solo show, "What A Farm Wife Painted," which opened on October 8, 1940 and provided Moses with her first true foothold in the American art scene. Acknowledging the importance of memory to her landscapes, Moses once stated, "what a strange thing is memory and Hope. They had ten children, five of whom survived infancy. 1950's. She was not home but her daughter-in-law told him to return tomorrow and Moses would show him another ten paintings. "[10] Her paintings were reproduced on Hallmark greeting cards, tiles, fabrics,[2] and ceramics. In the first months of 1961, Moses' health began to fail and after falling several times, she was forced to live in a nursing home. It was also one of the images reproduced by the Hallmark company in a line of greeting cards featuring Moses' work. According to Cleary, "her father, who had done some painting himself, would bring home sheets of newsprint now and then[]and she would set to work. The scene that is portrayed in a Moses painting is very important, from a monetary standpoint. The Sugaring Off was sold for US $1.2 million in 2006. 1950's. It is as though she is outlining the reality of rural life to children, and in the end this pared down and in no way egotistical approach to art making appeals strongly to adults as well. WebGrandma Moses Goes to the Big City Grandma Moses 1946 A Tramp on Christmas Day Grandma Moses 1946 Apple Butter Making Grandma Moses 1944-1947 She was a live-in housekeeper for a total of 15 years, starting at age 12. Art historian Judith Stein noted: "A cultural icon, the spry, productive nonagenarian was continually cited as an inspiration for housewives, widows and retirees. Originally purchased in the 1940s for under $10,[20] the piece was assigned an insurance value of $60,000 by the appraiser, Alan Fausel. This simple act would launch Moses' professional career when in 1938, after being on view for almost a year, Louis Caldor, a New York City art collector driving through the area, saw her paintings. Pure, unblended redbasic as love and life. WebHer paintings continue to grow in popularity, and now sell for over $1 million. Oil on pressed wood - Collection of Miss Porter's School, Farmington, Connecticut, Here Grandma Moses depicts landscape surrounding the Hoosick River. Highly decorative, in the mode of the primitive painters with whom Grandma Moses was often grouped, her landscapes did more than present hills and valleys and trees and fields; they told stories as well, or inspired the viewer to make them up." Whilst, As an Outsider Artist, with "folk" and "nave" tendencies Moses had no formal training; she was an exceptionally imaginative character and worked typically in isolation. She painted nostalgic scenes of American life and sold them at country fairs alongside her prize-winning pickles. A tiny, lively woman with mischievous gray eyes and a quick wit, she could be sharp-tongued with a sycophant and stern with an errant grandchild."[1]. [23], Norman Rockwell and Grandma Moses were friends who lived over the Vermont-New York state border from each other. Grandma Moses- My Lifes History, Ca. In 1824, the Long family, who owned the house and operated it as an inn, entertained the famed Revolutionary figure General Lafayette." This CBS Sunday Morning broadcast which aired on December 13, 2015, the anniversary of Grandma Moses birth, provides a discussion of her art and life. Starting her painting career later in life did not stop Moses from becoming in incredibly prolific painter. WebGrandma (Anna Robertson) Moses (1860 - 1961)American Print Winter Twilight Measure 12 1/2"in H x15 1/4"in W Known for: Naive landscape and rural ge 277: Grandma (Anna Robertson) Moses (1860 - 1961) American Est: $ 200 - $ 300 View sold prices Nov. 09, 2022 Coral Gables Auction Coral Gables, FL, US This would help launch Grandma Moses to the masses. After more exhibitions, which also included Moses baked goods, by 1944 the artist was represented by two galleries, which significantly increased the sale of her works. Rather than only capturing the key moment of the holiday, that of the feast, Moses' subjects often included the necessary (and often practical) activities required to prepare for the holiday itself, here the catching of the turkey that will be the focal point of the Thanksgiving dinner. As her career advanced, she created complicated, panoramic compositions of rural life. Moses would supplement the family income by selling homemade potato chips and butter. In 1927, Moses' beloved husband died unexpectedly from heart failure. Her specialty was depicting rural life, and she made landscapes and portraits based on that scenery. Furthermore, her father painted murals in the family's own house, as did her aunt in hers, and a certain playful competition developed within the family as to who could make the best art and be the most creative. She wrote an autobiography (My Life's History), won numerous awards, and was awarded two honorary doctoral degrees. [7][8], Five of the ten children born to them survived infancy. Moses and her husband began their married life in Virginia, where they worked on farms. Moses spent most of her life in nearby Eagle Bridge, New York depicting the rural landscape of Washington County. In "Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City" (1946), in the Smithsonian American Art Museums collection, she depicts herselfat age 80about to leave on her first trip to New York City to see her paintings on view at Galerie St. Etienne. Her discovery by a wider audience came about due to the purchases of her paintings by a New York art collector in 1938. Indeed, here in Hoosick, Moses recalled being pregnant with her first child and looking around thinking that the landscape was so beautiful that she wanted to paint it at the time. WebNew York Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) 18601961 Born Anna Mary Robertson, the artist left home at a young age to work as a hired girl at a neighboring farm. [2][9] She created quilted objects, a form of "hobby art". Indeed, the painting is a good example of one of Moses' "memory pictures." WebNew York Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses) 18601961 Born Anna Mary Robertson, the artist left home at a young age to work as a hired girl at a neighboring farm. In person, Grandma Moses charmed wherever she went. As author Margot Cleary explains, "throughout her career Grandma Moses was fond of painting old homesteads of local repute. She died at 101, after painting more than fifteen hundred images. WebAnna Mary Robertson Moses (September 7, 1860 December 13, 1961), or Grandma Moses, was an American folk artist. Later, the couple bought a farm,[2] Mount Airy, near Verona, Virginia; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Hyperallergic / Sugaring Off was sold for US$1.2 million in 2006. WebMoses' paintings are displayed in the collections of many museums. This can particularly be seen in her paintings "Applebutter Making" (1947) and "Pumpkins" (1959). Moses painted scenes of rural life, including farm life. Utterly self-taught with a directness of vision, her life and work illuminate the far-reaching power of one pair of practical, whilst also determined and devoted, human hands. ", As Grandma Moses' popularity grew so did demands for her paintings and she became inundated with orders. Currency:USD ($) ", Unable to meet the growing demand, reproductions became an effective way to ensure everyone got to have a "Grandma Moses" of their own. [] the 1943 picture puts syruping in the context of a wider world that includes a pretty little church in the middle distance and a snug village on the left horizon. Most similar are his paintings of a countryside scene in Birch Craig, Northumberland (c.1930), to which he returned to exactly the same landscape for each of the four seasons. WebSummer in the Valley, 1943. US$1,000. Interestingly, the integration of men and women as equals at work on the farm was always important to Moses. Moses would have been familiar with the significance of the house having grown up near the building that was located in Cambridge, New York before it was burned down in a fire in 1907. Painting in a "childlike" style was greatly respected during the latter decades of the twentieth century, epitomized by the ideas and careers of Jean Dubuffet and Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Grandma Moses had started this powerful wave many years before. A membership group for young professionals who are interested in immersing themselves in the American art experience. Her pictures present these activities as highly creative acts in themselves. According to Marling, at the end of her life, Moses had sold 100 million Christmas cards. Oil on pressed wood - Collection of Bennington Museum, Bennington, Vermont. Moses had three brothers and she loved being outdoors with them, she describes herself in her own memoir, My Life's History, as something of a "tomboy" and said that if there was anything her brothers could do, she could do it better. 1950's, Signed Autograph 3x5 Cut, Certified Graded by PSA DNA , ca. Lush green fields and flowering trees populate the foreground where three cows graze alongside a wooden rail fence. VINCE fine arts/ephemera. Her ability to capture the spirit of America was reinforced by then President John F. Kennedy who upon her death made an official statement, which read, "her passing takes away a beloved figure from American life. Naturally - naturally, I should. Moses spent most of her life in Eagle Bridge, New York, fifteen miles northwest of Bennington, depicting the rolling landscape of Washington County. Explore over 425 Million sold for prices with item details and images. WebSummer in the Valley, 1943. According to Marling, "the popularity of Mrs. Moses' maple sugar pictures cannot be overestimated. WebIn this painting Grandma Moses provides an idyllic view of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. The books and articles below constitute a bibliography of the sources used in the writing of this page. Her specialty was depicting rural life, and she made landscapes and portraits based on that scenery. WebGrandma Moses did not start painting until she was seventy-seven years old and looking for something to do to keep busy and out of mischief after her husband died. It was here that she gave birth to her children, half of whom never lived long enough to experience life themselves. According to Cleary, "demand for Checkered House paintings was so great that Moses painted nearly two dozen versions of it. US$35,500. Both her work and her life helped our nation renew its pioneer heritage and recall its roots in the countryside and on the frontier. [5][6] To supplement the family income at Mount Nebo, Anna made potato chips and churned butter from the milk of a cow that she purchased with her savings. Fiercely independent, Moses did not like this new arrangement and according to Cleary, upset that her doctor insisted she give up painting, "there were times when she was so annoyed with him that she would hide his stethoscope and refuse to reveal where it was unless he let her go back home." With no time in her difficult farm life to pursue painting, she was obliged to set aside her passion to paint. The artist best known as "Grandma Moses" was born Anna Mary Robertson; the third of ten children to parents Russell King Robertson, a flax farmer, and Mary Shannahan Robertson. WebGrandma Moses Paintings. For here, as with many of her works it was not created whilst the artist lived in Virginia, but rather years later. Furthermore, the paintings often have a three-dimensional quality that recalls the artist's talents as a yarn embroiderer. According to text from the Bennington Museum, "in 1777 the building was used as headquarters for the British troops before the Battle of Bennington and as a hospital following the battle. Her first solo exhibition, "What a Farm Wife Painted", opened in New York in October 1940 at Otto Kallir's Galerie St. Anna Mary Moses (nee Robertson) was born September 7, 1860, in Greenwich, New York. She embroidered pictures with yarn, until disabled by arthritis. Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery. Moses took as her subject a real place, here a once famous landmark. Grandma Moses. US$35,500. GBP () Memory is a painter.", "I like to paint something that leads me on and on into the unknown, something that I want to see always on beyond. A large house painted in alternately red and white squares dominates the center of this Grandma Moses painting. Painting in an untrained manner that refused to follow more traditional rules of classical art making, she elevated the status of nave, folk, outsider, Art Brut, and primitive art styles. The indefatigable artist has been the subject of exhibitions at the worlds most prestigious institutions, from the Museum of Modern Art and Centre Pompidou to the Stedelijk Museum and Tate Modern. Through these utterly innocent renderings of festivities, Moses' paintings became statements about a particular atmosphere that the holiday was supposed to be imbued with, and this was capitalized on to sell products and even to make political statements. Her exhibitions were incredibly popular and well-attended. Grandma Moses. Renwick Gallery. WebGrandma Moses initially charged very little for her paintings three to five dollars. In "Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City" (1946), in the Smithsonian American Art Museums collection, she depicts herselfat age 80about to leave on her first trip to New York City to see her paintings on view at Galerie St. Etienne. As this early work shows, Moses drew artistic inspiration from the places that she had lived. Some found the work too simple or primitive, others found that it did not align with the then popular Surrealist and just developing Abstract Expressionist art movements; however Caldor persevered. Challenging the notions of traditional painting (albeit in a different style), it was an arguably entirely modern effort not unlike other trailblazers of different movements that were simultaneously occurring at the same time. Her painting "Joy Ride" (1953) conveys a sense of fun after the labors were complete. Moses said that she would "get an inspiration and start painting; then I'll forget everything, everything except how things used to be and how to paint it so people will know how we used to live. Perhaps the most unlikely product, given Moses' simple lifestyle, was a red lipstick by the Richard Hudnut Company. Her naive style (labeled American Primitive by art historians) was acclaimed for its purity of colour, its attention to detail, and its vigour. [19] It was not as common as her winter landscapes. This is a selection of the public collections of her work: On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. This would help launch Grandma Moses to the masses. 1943. Later, when her career began in earnest, she would credit her husband for her art, stating, "I am not superstitious or anything like that. It will give just as much pleasure - perhaps even more. Her paintings give home to a constant hive of activity combined with a great deal of playfulness. Moses' birthday parties also became major celebrations. [16] She initially charged $3 to $5 for a painting, depending upon its size, and as her fame increased her works were sold for $8,000 to $10,000. WebThroughout her lifetime Grandma Moses produced about 2,000 paintings, most of them on masonite board. WebMost of these early paintings were given away, but Grandma Moses did manage a few sales, charging US$2 or US $3 depending on painting size, with the larger paintings being more expensive. This exposure lead to her first solo exhibition titled What a Farm Wife Painted, which opened in New York City in 1940. At the ripe age of 78, Mrs. Moses began painting and would come to be known affectionately as Grandma Moses.. Perhaps anticipating her future profession, Moses' favorite thing to do in school was to draw maps. I paint pretty pictures. According to Franklin, "when she found a figure that she particularly liked, she would reuse it in multiple paintings, such as a child with his back to the viewer running into the fictive space of the paintings." Like a child running into the center of the action is a very fitting metaphor for Moses who always prepared to keep busy and do a great deal rather than remain idle. The next year, three Grandma Moses paintings were included in New York's Museum of Modern Art exhibition titled "Contemporary Unknown American Painters". Whilst on the left, the men of the household use this soap to wash the sheep in the pond." Equally challenging tasks, Moses cleverly uses compositional devices within the painting to show the divisions of farm labor along gender lines. Many of Grandma Moses' paintings illustrate day-to-day farm activities, for example, "sugaring off" (preparing maple syrup), shearing and washing sheep, and making soap and butter. It was true that 'the 90th Thanksgiving of Grandma Moses isn't the happiest America has known,' began the essay under the picture. [17] A German fan said, "There emanates from her paintings a light-hearted optimism; the world she shows us is beautiful and it is good. Her spunkiness and no-nonsense attitude, even about the winding down of her own life, was confirmed in an answer to his question of what she would do for the next twenty years to which she replied, "I am going up yonder. According to Marling, this painting, "is a good illustration of the division of production between men and women. As the brave and determined sister amongst brothers, she was aware from a young age that expectations and restrictions set against girls were unjust and infuriating. LIFE magazine featured her on the cover, while New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller proclaimed the day Grandma Moses Day.. They were also used to market products, like coffee, lipstick, cigarettes, and cameras. Renwick Gallery. Numerous carriages are arriving and leaving the grounds, while other figures attend to the horses in the stables located on the right side of the painting. [1] That school is now the Bennington Museum in Vermont, which has the largest collection of her works in the United States. In the center are the outlines of other houses and a church steeple along with wagons of people heading toward the sugaring off activities. Caldor struggled early on however to get people to pay attention to Moses' paintings. WebAt auction, a number of Picassos paintings have sold for more than $100 million. The scene is so realistic that it looks as though the artist has gathered foliage and used a collage technique to make the picture. This painting is a good example of one of Moses' main themes, that of celebrations and holidays. The same year she took on a major project, illustrating a version of Clement Moore's The Night Before Christmas for Random House publishers. 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