Anna Mary Robertson Moses, later known as Grandma Moses, was born in rural New York in 1860. As a teenager and young woman, she worked as a housekeeper for wealthy farmers, even though her real passion was for art, and it was her employers' Currier and Ives prints that first sparked her artistic inclinations. After she got married, she moved to a farm in Virginia where she had 10 children, though only 5 survived past infancy, and then later she returned to New York. For friend's gifts, she would often embroider pictures, but when at the age of 76 arthritis in her hands made this difficult, her sister encouraged her to paint. Thus her illustrious career was born. Here are 5 facts to know:
1. She started her career at 78
Grandma Moses did not pick up a paintbrush until 1938, when she was 78. She began painting rural life and idyllic New England landscapes that harkened to a bygone era, before modern conveniences like telephone poles or cars. Although she had never seen his works, some critics drew similarities between her work and that of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. After an art collector spotted her work at a drug store, she soon rose to national and international acclaim, with a notable inclusion in a MOMA exhibit in 1939.
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2. She became 'Young Woman of the Year' at the age of 88
In 1948, Grandma Moses was listed as one of Mademoiselle magazine's 'Young Woman of the Year'. She received the title alongside interior decorator Dorothy Q. Noyes and economist Barbara Ward. The accolade was awarded to ten women annually, with Grandmas Moses winning it for her 'flourishing young career and the youth of her spirit.'
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3. Her paintings were once sold for at little as £2
Grandma Moses painted over 1500 works in nearly three decades, until her death in 1961 at the age of 101. She began by charging around a few dollars for a painting, but as her works grew in popularity, the value increased to a few thousand.
Now, however, her works are highly sought after at auction. Her record was set when Sugaring Off from 1943 sold at Christie's in 2006 for £714,000. Paintings such as Sugaring Off depicted Moses' belief that men, women and children all had a role in their daily work as a community.
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4. She was friends with Norman Rockwell
Norman Rockwell and Grandma Moses were friends who lived over the Vermont-New York state border from each other. Grandma Moses appears in Rockwell's painting Christmas Homecoming, which was used as the cover for The Saturday Evening Post on 25 December 1948.
5. One of her paintings hangs in The White House
Grandma Moses' Fourth of July is owned by The White House. The work was used on a U.S. commemorative stamp that was issued in her honour in 1969. Her works are also found in major museums like The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The largest collection of her works are at the Bennington Museum in Vermont, which is housed in the building where Grandma Moses once attended school.
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This is an updated version of an article originally published on 20 September 2016.
