Grandma Moses
American artist (1860 - 1961)
- || At The Bottom
1927 -- Anna Moses, a 67-year-old farm wife from upstate New York, had just buried her husband, Thomas, a former farm worker to whom she'd been married for 40 years. Coming from a poor family, Moses had worked hard all her life, first as a farmhand and then as a tenant farmer with Thomas in Virginia, where they lived for about 16 years during the late 19th century. The Moses family was no stranger to heartbreak during their days, as Anna and Thomas watched five of their ten children die. After their farmhouse burned down in 1905, they returned to New York and established a small dairy farm, which brought them a modest income but took its toll on the bodies of Anna and Thomas. Thomas Moses worked until the day he died of a heart attack, while Anna Moses continued to labor each day even as her hands began to show the signs of arthritis. Several of her children remained on the farm to help with the daily routine, but at her age -- and with American farmers experiencing a long period of hard times preceding the Great Depression -- Anna Moses faced an uncertain future.
- || At The Top
1960 -- On her 100th birthday, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller proclaimed September 7 to be "Grandma Moses Day," in honor of the woman who had become the most popular female artist in American history. By that point, Anna Moses had over 3600 paintings to her credit, almost all of them featuring scenes of rural farm life -- the only life she had ever really known. A self-taught artist, Moses nevertheless captivated critics, collectors and the general public, who found her simple, pleasant visions appealing at a time of tremendous historical change and amid the deepening tensions of the Cold War. Moses' work brought her viewers back to a time that seemed more innocent and less complicated, a world defined by small town virtues and a lifestyle untouched by commercialism. (Ironically, Moses' work was used by the Hallmark company -- no strangers to commerce -- on numerous greeting cards over the years.) In the two decades since her art became known to the world outside her family and hometown, Moses had become an international sensation.
- || The Comeback
Anna Moses' husband and several of her children had always admired her skill with a sewing needle, and they knew as well that she had an interest in painting that she had been unable to pursue as much more than an occasional hobby. In the first few years after her husband's death, Moses spent some time doing some embroidered pictures, but she eventually had to abandon the craft as her arthritis worsened. She could still hold a paintbrush, however, and in 1935 -- at the tender age of 75 -- began to paint more frequently, exhibiting some of her pictures at local events including fairs and charity sales. She gave away much of this early work, having no intention of making money from it; indeed, at the county fair one year, she earned a prize for her preserves but nothing for her paintings. In 1938, an amateur art collector named Louis Caldor happened to see some of Moses' work displayed in a drugstore. He tracked down Anna Moses and urged her to submit some of her work for a show at the New York Museum of Modern Art. Moses and her family laughed when Caldor promised that he could help her achieve fame in the art world. Though initially many of New York's art critics and collectors were not enthusiastic about investing in the work of an elderly amateur, within two years her work had begun to make a mark. Thomas Watson, IBM's founder, purchased one of her pieces, as did singer Cole Porter. Before World War II as over, "Grandma" Moses' work was being exhibited throughout the United States, with a traveling show that would circulate throughout the country until 1963, two years after the artist's death. For millions of elderly Americans, Moses' life has offered proof that "second acts" are possible and that it's never too late in life to pick up a new career -- or to return to one.
