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Grandma Moses is no stereotypical cookie-baking, technology-fearing, politically incorrect, gardening grammy.
I mean, she was definitely a grandma. She had 10 children (only 5 of which survived past infancy), nine grandchildren and over thirty great-grandchildren (and counting) but she wasn’t just a grandma. In her old age, she took up painting and apparently had a knack for it because she became a famous artist in her 70s!
To put things in perspective, Grandma Moses was born the same year that Abraham Lincoln was elected president (1860) and died the same year that construction began on the Berlin Wall (1961). If this doesn’t blow your mind then I don’t know what can. The things poor Grandma Moses must have seen in her lifetime. Rightfully so, she was dubbed “Grandmother of the Nation.”
Grandma Moses began her art career when she could no longer do embroidery due to arthritis, which may be the most grandmotherly thing to ever happen. She first sent her paintings to a county fair along with her raspberry jam and strawberry preserves. Strangely, it was the jam that stole the show. She was only discovered when an art collector/engineer from New York bought some of her paintings for $3-$5 dollars each. She then had a show in New York followed by a feature in the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibition “Contemporary Unknown American Painters.” And from there, her career skyrocketed and little Grandma Moses became the bee’s knees.
She did have a backup plan if the art thing didn’t pan out, however. She stated that “if [she] hadn’t started painting, [she] would have raised chickens,” which is similar…but different. Luckily for us her art career did pan out so Grandma Moses became famous, she befriended Norman Rockwell and was featured in his painting “Christmas Homecoming,” had a character based off of her in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies (obviously “granny” is the character based off of her), and even has a painting of hers currently hanging in the White House. Grandma Moses truly put the little old lady stereotype to shame with her kicking of ass and taking of names.
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Here is what Wikipedia says about Grandma Moses
Anna Mary Robertson Moses (September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961), popularly known as Grandma Moses, was an American folk artist. She began painting in earnest at the age of 78 and is a prominent example of a newly successful art career at an advanced age. Moses rose to fame in the 1950s. She was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary in 1950, published her autobiography in 1952, and was on the cover of Time Magazine in 1953.
Starting at the age of 12, Moses worked as a live-in housekeeper for 15 years. Moses and her husband began their married life in Virginia, where they worked on farms. In 1905, they settled in Eagle Bridge, New York. They had ten children, five of whom survived infancy. Moses worked in a variety of arts and crafts. Arthritis forced her to focus on painting as she aged.
In her 1961 front page obituary, The New York Times wrote, "The simple realism, nostalgic atmosphere and luminous color with which Grandma Moses portrayed simple farm life and rural countryside won her a wide following. She was able to capture the excitement of winter's first snow, Thanksgiving preparations and the new, young green of oncoming spring...In person, Grandma Moses charmed wherever she went."
Moses's work has been a subject of numerous art exhibitions worldwide and has been extensively merchandised. In 2006, her 1943 painting titled Sugaring Off was sold at Christie's New York for US$1.36 million, setting an auction record for the artist.
Check out the full Wikipedia article about Grandma Moses
