SEPT/OCT 2014
Late-Life Success:
Grandma Moses
Folk artist is consummate example
of starting a new career at
advanced age
by Angela S. Hoover,
Staff Writer
Renowned
American folk artist
Grandma Moses is
one of the most noted and oft-cited
examples of someone embarking on
new career at an advanced age. Yet,
unlike other late-life success stories,
Anna Mary Robertson Moses didn’t
plan to start a new career.
Born Sept. 7, 1860 in Greenwich,
N.Y., Moses grew up in a rural farm
community with sporadic education. As a child, she drew pictures
and colored them with berry and
grape juices. At age 12, she left her
parent’s farm to work as a hired girl
until she married Thomas Moses
in 1887. The two farmed in the
Shenandoah Valley near Staunton,
Va., until 1905, when they moved to
a farm at Eagle Bridge, N.Y., not far
from her birthplace. Thomas died in
1927 and Moses continued farming
until 1936.
Moses tried doing worsted
embroidery but arthritis made it too
difficult, so she switched to painting
at age 76. Initially, she copied illustrated postcards and Currier and
Ives prints. Later she began recreating scenes from her childhood. She
gave her early paintings away or sold
them for $2 to $5.
23
In 1939, Louis Caldor, an
engineer and art collector, was
impressed by several of her paintings he saw hanging in a drugstore
window in Hoosick Falls, N.Y. He
bought them, then went to her farm
and bought her remaining paintings.
In October of that year, three of the
paintings were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
in a show titled “Contemporary,
Unknown Painters.”
Moses’ paintings immediately
garnered favorable criticism. Art
historians labeled her painting style
American Primitive, described as
naïve yet acclaimed for its purity of
color, attention to detail and vigor.
Throughout her life, Moses produced more than 1,600 paintings. In
November 2006, her 1943 painting
“Sugaring Off” sold for $1.2 million.
In October 1940, Moses had a
one-woman show of 35 paintings
under the name Mrs. Moses at Galerie St. Etienne in New York. The
press dubbed her Grandma Moses
and the nickname stuck. Grandma
Moses exhibitions were so popular
they broke attendance records all
over the world. From 1946, her
LSG
paintings were reproduced in prints
and on Christmas cards, as well as
curtains, dresses, cookie jars and
dinner ware. They were used to sell
cigarettes, cameras, lipstick and
instant coffee.
Moses’ paintings were shown
throughout the United States and
Europe in about 150 solo shows and
100 group exhibits. In 1949, President Harry Truman presented her
with the Women’s National Press
Club Trophy Award for outstanding accomplishment in art. In 1950
the National Press Club cited her
as one of the five most newsworthy
women, and the National Association of House Dress Manufacturers
named her their 1951 Woman of
the Year. Moore College of Art in
Philadelphia awarded her its first
honorary doctorate degree. Mademoiselle magazine named Grandma
Moses “Young Woman of the Year”
when she was 88.
A little more than a year and a half
after being featured on the cover of
Life magazine, Robertson died at
the age of 101. A U.S. commemorative stamp was issued in her honor
in 1969.
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