Grandma Moses

Background

Grandma Moses was born on September 7, 1860, in Greenwich, Washington County, New York, United States. She was the third of ten children born to Russell King Robertson, a farmer, and Margaret Shannahan and was raised with four sisters and five brothers.

Education

Grandma Moses only attended school in the summer due to the cold and her lack of warm clothing. Leaving home at the age of twelve, she went to work as a hired girl for a nearby farm. Moses was a self-taught artist, she did not begin painting until her late 70s.

Grandma was awarded two honorary doctoral degrees. The first was bestowed in 1949 from Russell Sage College and the second two years later from the Moore College of Art and Design.

Career

In 1887, Anna Mary Moses with her husband settled in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. There they ran a farm and raised children together. In 1905, Moses returned to New York State with her family. She and her husband operated a farm in Eagle Bridge, New York. Moses later began dabbling in painting, creating her first work on a fireboard in her home in 1918. She occasionally painted after that, but she didn’t devote herself to her craft until much later. Moses lost her husband in 1927, and Anna continued to farm with the help of her youngest son until advancing age forced her to retire to a daughter’s home in 1936.

By the mid-1930s, Moses, then in her seventies, devoted most of her time to painting. Her first big break came in 1938. She had some of her works hanging in a local store, and an art collector named Louis J. Caldor saw them and bought them all. The following year, Moses had some of her paintings shown at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in an exhibition of unknown artists. She went on to have her first one-woman show in New York in 1940 as well as had her picturesque works displayed at Gimbels, a famous New York department store, the following year.

In the mid-1940s, her images were reproduced on greeting cards, which introduced her to a wider audience. She passed away on December 13, 1961, in a medical center in Hoosick Falls, New York.

Achievements

• During her career, Moses created roughly 1,500 works of art. Her paintings still remain popular today and provide a glimpse into America’s pastoral past. She participated in more than 100 showes over the decades. From 1946 her paintings were often reproduced in prints and on Christmas cards.
  
  Her works are included in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Bennington Museum in Vermont.
  
  Her work "Sugaring Off" sold at Christie's New York 'Important American Paintings' in 2006 for $1,360,000.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Grandma Moses: My Life's History 1952

• painting

  • Wash Day

    1945

  • Waiting for Christmas

    1960

  • Hoosick Valley (From the Window)

    1946

  • So Long Till Next Year

    1960

  • Plow Boy

    1950

  • Shenandoah Valley

    1938

  • Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City

    1946

  • A Storm Is on the Water Now

    1947

  • Country Fair

    1950

  • Sugaring Off

    1943

  • A Blizzard

    1956

  • Apple Butter Making

    1947

  • Mt. Nebo on the Hill

    1940

  • Catching the Turkey

  • The Quilting Bee

    1950

  • Halloween

    1955

  • Joy Ride

    1953

  • Let Me Help

  • Checkered House

  • Morning Day on the Farm

    1951

  • The Rainbow

    1961

  • Hoosick Falls, New York, in Winter

    1944

  • Winter

  • Taking in the Laundry

    1951

  • Shenandoah Valley (1861 News of the Battle)

    1938

  • A Beautiful World

    1948

  • Checkered House

    1943

  • Christmas at Home

  • Checkered House

  • The Thunderstorm

    1948

  • The Burning of Troy in 1862

    1943

  • Eagle Bridge Hotel

    1959

  • Catching the Thanksgiving Turkey

    1943

  • A Tramp on Christmas Day

    1946

  • Catching the Turkey

    1940

  • Sugaring Off

    1955

  • The Spring in Evening

    1947

  • Early Springtime on the Farm

    1945

Views

Quotations: "I’ll 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."

Membership

Grandma Moses was a member of the Society of Mayflower Descendants and Daughters of the American Revolution.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• John F. Kennedy: "The directness and vividness of her paintings restored a primitive freshness to our perception of the American scene."

Connections

In 1887, Grandma Moses married Thomas Salmon Moses, a farmer. They had ten children, five of whom died in infancy.

Father:

Russell King Robertson

Mother:

Margaret Robertson

Spouse:

Thomas Salmon Moses

Sister:

Miami Robertson

Daughter:

Winona R. Fisher

Son:

Forrest King Moses

Son:

Hugh W. Moses

Daughter:

Anna May Moses

Son:

Loyd Moses

Friend:

Norman Rockwell

References

• Grandma Moses: American Modern
  2016
• The Night Before Christmas Author, curator, and principal of Grandma Moses Properties, Jane Kallir has provided an introduction highlighting Grandma Moses's impact on the art world, and on America in the postwar years.
  2007
• Grandma Moses This book contains a biography details the life story and major accomplishments of an artistic master.
  2016