Grandma Moses: in the 21st Century

by Jane Kallir, Michael D. Hall, Roger Cardinal

Grandma Moses and her paintings first came to public attention in 1940, when she was 80 years old. Her folk art, down-home personality, and background as a farmer and homemaker charmed the American public. By the time she died at the age of 101, she had completed over 1600 works of art and had established an international reputation. The work of "the white-haired girl," a self-taught artist who was a regular news feature for two decades, remained enormously popular at home and abroad even in the years after her death. For this reevaluation of the work of Grandma Moses, Jane Kallir contributes an authoritative introduction and presents a catalogue that illustrates 87 of Moses' most important works. Kallir traces Moses' development as an artist from the first embroidered landscapes to the glorious paintings of her "old-age style." The Grandma Moses myth is tackled from various perspectives. Roger Cardinal examines the artist's working methods, exploring the relationship between the actual regional landscape and her interpretation of the area. Michael D. Hall places Moses within the context of contemporary artistic and social movements of the 1940s and 1950s. Lynda Roscoe Hartigan reveals how memory and imagination merge in the paintings. And Judith E. Stein discusses the role of gender in shaping the artist's reputation in the postwar years.

Genres: Art

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Linda Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the partner publication to a national tour of Grandma Moses' art, an endeavor led, and curated, by Jane Kallir, the foremost scholar on Moses. I love the collection of Anna Mary Robertson Moses' work. The great beauty of shiny, thick-paged art books is we can see the art in its best representation, second only to in-person with CMYK color intensity rather than RGB. We can see art that is in private collections. We get a whole view, and that's remarkable. This book takes a risk, and crosses the gutter to show bigger complete canvases, as close to life-sized as possible. Bonus! My new favorite Grandma Moses painting is "My Forefather's Mill." Heartfelt, warmly lighted, and a little sparer on the details. I got the book from the library to read one section "The White-Haired Girl: A Feminist Reading" by Judith E. Stein and it was a completely satisfying read. The rest - I get cranky in the insular world of fine art discussion in relation to anything else that matters in the world, and I'm okay with that, as the fine art world is undoubtedly fine with my inattention. I thoroughly enjoyed the "Late Work and 'Old-Age Style'" commentary near the back of the book. Grandma Moses, although she didn't begin painting until she was 80, demonstrated creative growth for the next 20 years. Super. Should give us all a spurt of enthusiasm for upping our style, and creating a signature body of work, regardless of how many birthdays have gone by.