Grandma's Pictures

Anna Mary Robertson was born on September 7th, 1860, in Greenwich, New York. Her father was a farmer and also owned a flax mill. She had four sisters, and five brothers, and her favourite activity as a child was painting. She made her colours with grape juice, flour, ochre and sawdust. Aged 12 she was sent to work for a neighbouring farmer, doing household chores. She learned to cook, to sew and to keep house. For the next 15 years she worked for various wealthy farm families, and one of these bought her chalk and wax crayons for her artwork.

Aged 27, she found herself working on the same farm as Thomas Salmon Moses. They married, amd had ten children [five survived infancy] and eventually were able to buy their own farm.Anna worked incredibly hard, helping with the farm and running the family. She gave up her painting and turned to sewing - making and mending, and also producing embroidered pictures which she sold to supplement the family income. Then aged 67, Thomas died suddenly. Anna moved in with her daughter, and was known as Grandma Moses. She was fond of 'hobby art' - what would be termed recycling or upcycling nowadays - using discarded objects as her materials. Then aged 78 she developed arthritis, and could no longer sew. 

She returned to her first love, painting. When her right hand ached, she put the brush into her left. She produced a painting a week, usually of the rural scenes she saw around her. Just before the outbreak of WW2, a dealer saw some of her work displayed in a small town drugstore. He bought all their stock of paintings [at $4 each] - and persuaded MOMA to include some of them in a folk art exhibition. Then things really took off.

Grandma Moses had her own exhibition in New York, and at the age of 80 travelled up to the Big Apple for the first time in her life. The picture above is called "Grandma Moses Goes to The Big City"

People loved her depictions of rural American life, and the traditional celebrations of holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. She gained a global following. One of her pieces [July Fourth, below] went to the White House.

When she was 100, in 1960, she featured on the cover of Time Magazine - and  the Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, proclaimed September 7th to be Grandma Moses Day. In three decades she had produced more than 1500 canvases.

Anna died in December 1961, aged 101. President John F Kennedy said: "The death of Grandma Moses removed a beloved figure from American life. The directness and vividness of her paintings restored a primitive freshness to our perception of the American scene. Both her work and her life helped our nation renew its pioneer heritage and recall its roots in the countryside and on the frontier. All Americans mourn her loss."

In 1969 her '4th July' featured on a US Postage stamp, and in 2006 one of her artworks was sold for $1.2 million. She once said "I look back on my life like a good day's work, it was done and I feel satisfied with it. I was happy and contented, I knew nothing better and made the best out of what life offered. And life is what we make it, always has been, always will be."

If I have to give up my sewing, I cannot see myself turning to art. But I admire the indomitable spirit of this lady. I love her simple depictions of the rural area in which she lived, and the patterns of life which are long gone.

Happy Grandma Moses Day, folks!