The life of Anna Mary Robertson Moses - Old Schoolhouse Road Publishing

Books Bygone: The life of Anna Mary Robertson Moses
Marica Bernstein

Originally published February 6, 2014

Grandma Moses. Otto Kallir. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. 1973.

I, Anna Mary Robertson, was born back in the green meadows and wild woods, on a farm in Washington, Co. in the year of 1860… . Here I spent the first ten years of my life with Mother, Father, Sisters and Brothers, those were my happy days, free from care and worry… . 1870, now came the hard years… where twelve years of age I left home to earn my own living as then was called a hired girl.

There is a quote I’ve always liked in a little old book about books: “There are three services which books may render in the home: they may be ornaments, tools, or friends.” Here at Books Bygone I’ve introduced several of my friends, many of which are also handy tools. Today I’d like to introduce to you a beautiful ornament, one that often sits open on the coffee table, waiting to be leisurely perused. The book is Grandma Moses, and it presents not only Anna Mary Robertson’s remarkable life story, but also an enormous number of her paintings. (Wikipaintings.org has some Grandma Moses paintings. When you have a minute, take a look.)

Until I found this old book, I’d forgotten all about Grandma Moses, the American folk artist who took up painting when she was in her 70s. What a remarkable woman! The quote above is from her autobiographical sketch written in 1945. She tells the story of keeping house for a family and of “being very proud in those days, could get up such fine dinner.” And

when the minister came and I could bring out the fine linen and china tea set, and the heavy silver, them with hot biscuits homemade butter and honey, with home cured dryed beef, I was proud.

Her career as a hired girl ended in 1887 when she married Thomas Solomon Moses. For several years they lived in “that beautiful Shenandoah valley” where she left “five little graves.” In 1905 she, Thomas, and their five children moved to New York State, bought a farm, and

went into the dairy business selling milk, and doing general farm work. … Here Jan. 15, 1927, my husband died, my youngest son and wife taking over the farm, leaving me unoccupied, I had to do something so took up painting pictures.

The subject of most Grandma Moses paintings is life on the farm. “Wash Day,” “The Spring in Evening,” “The Thunderstorm,” “The Meeting House,” and “A Quilting Bee” are a few of her 1100-plus works. “Rainbow,” painted in 1961 at age 101, was her last. It is a farm scene—men are working, animals and carts are near the barn. A large tree is in the foreground and a church tucked into the hills in the background. Behind the tree and over the church is a pale rainbow that she had intended to make bolder but never did. An art critic wrote after her passing,

The pale rainbow … will never be strengthened now. … No matter. It will remain a strong enough span for those looking at it—or indeed, any of her pictures—to be able to reach her simple, peaceful, idyllic nineteenth-century world from their own frantic world of today.

President Kennedy mourned her by saying, “The directness and vividness of her paintings restored a primitive freshness to our perception of the American scene.” Another tribute said, “We cannot think of the life, now concluded, of Anna Mary Robertson Moses without cheerfulness.” Simple. Fresh. Cheerful. All of the makings of a treasured ornament!

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Filed under American History, Biography, Farm Work

Tagged as America, cultural history, Grandma Moses, Grandma Moses paintings, Homemaker, Otto Kallir