American

Grandma (Anna Mary Robertson) Moses

U.S. 1860-1961
Jack-O'Lantern 97.0002

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The most famous of American "naïve" painters, Anna Mary Robertson Moses was eighty years old when she had her first exhibition, held at the Galerie St. Etienne in New York in 19 . By the time of her death at age 101 she had become a national institution. Her colorful and nostalgic images of American rural life in a pre-modern era, or as she phrased it, "old-timey farm life," became immensely popular and widely reproduced. Moses was born on a Washington County, New York farm, married a farmer and, except for twenty years in Virginia, spent her entire life within a few miles of her birthplace. When arthritis made it impossible for her to continue her embroidery and needlework projects in her seventies, she took up painting. Her autobiography, My Life's History, was published in 1952. It described many happy experiences living on a farm as a young girl, such as pumpkin gathering, and Jack-o'Lantern carving.

 

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