Anna robertson He only had sporadic periods of study during his childhood. At age 12 she left her parents’ farm and worked as a servant until she married Thomas Moses in 1887. The newlyweds were first farmers in the Shenandoah Valley, near Staunton, Virginia, and in 1905 they moved to a farm. in Eagle Bridge, New York, near his birthplace. Thomas died in 1927, and Anna She remained on the farm with the help of her youngest son until her advanced age forced her to retire to a daughter’s home in 1936.
As a child, the future artist drew and colored her drawings with berry juice and grapes. After her husband’s death, she created embroidered images, but when her arthritis made it very difficult to manipulate the needle, she turned to painting. At first, he copied illustrated and printed postcards from Currier & Ives, but gradually began to recreate scenes from his childhood, as in Apple pickers (c. 1940), Sugaring-Off in the Maple Orchard (1940), Catching the Thanksgiving Turkey (1943), and Over the River to Grandma’s House (c. 1944). His first paintings were given away or sold for small sums.
In 1939 Louis Caldor, an engineer and art collector, was impressed to see several of his paintings hanging in a pharmacy window in Hoosick Falls, New York. He went to his farm and bought his remaining stock of 15 paintings. In October of that year three of those paintings were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, in a show entitled “Unknown Contemporary Painters.”
From the beginning the work of Grandma moses received rave reviews. In October 1940 a one-man show of 35 paintings was held at the Galerie St. Etienne in New York. From then on his paintings were exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, in some 150 solo exhibitions and 100 group shows. Throughout his life Grandma produced around 2,000 paintings, most of them on chipboard. His naive style (listed as “Early American” by art historians) was hailed for its purity of color, attention to detail, and vigor.
Other notable works by Grandma include Black horses (1942), Out for the Christmas Trees (1946), The Old Oaken Bucket (1946), From my window (1949) and Making Apple Butter (1958). since 1946 his paintings are often reproduced in prints and Christmas cards. His autobiography, The Story of My Life, was published in 1952.
Grandma moses He passed away on December 13, 1961.