Anna Mary Robertson Moses (September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961), or 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 gained popularity during the 1950s, having been featured on a cover of Time Magazine in 1953, was a subject of numerous television programs and of a 1950 Oscar-nominated biographical documentary. Her autobiography, titled My Life's History, was published in 1952. She was also awarded two honorary doctoral degrees.
Moses was a live-in housekeeper for a total of 15 years, starting at age 12. An employer noticed her appreciation for their prints made by Currier and Ives, and they supplied her with drawing materials. Moses and her husband began their married life in Virginia, where they worked on farms. In 1905, they returned to the Northeastern United States and settled in Eagle Bridge, New York. They had ten children, five of whom survived infancy. She embroidered pictures with yarn, until disabled by arthritis.
In her 1961 obituary, The New York Times said: "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. A tiny, lively woman with mischievous gray eyes and a quick wit, she could be sharp-tongued with a sycophant and stern with an errant grandchild."
Moses' work has been a subject of numerous museum exhibitions worldwide and has been extensively merchandised, such as on greeting cards. In 2006, her 1943 painting titled Sugaring Off was sold at Christie's New York for , setting an auction record for the artist.
Early life
Anna Mary Robertson was born in Greenwich, New York on September 7, 1860; she was the third of ten children born to Margaret Shanahan Robertson and Russell King Robertson. She was raised with four sisters and five brothers. Her father ran a flax mill and was a farmer. She briefly attended a one-room school. That school is now the Bennington Museum in Vermont, which has the largest collection of her works in the United States. She was inspired to paint by taking art lessons at school. As a child, she started painting using lemon and grape juice to make colors for her "landscapes" and used ground ocher, grass, flour paste, slacked lime, and sawdust.
At age 12, she left home and performed farm chores for a wealthy neighboring family. She continued to keep house, cook, and sew for wealthy families for 15 years. One of these families, the Whitesides, noticed her interest in their Currier and Ives prints and bought her chalk and wax crayons.
Marriage and children
At age 27, she worked on the same farm with Thomas Salmon Moses, a "hired man". They were married and established themselves near Staunton, Virginia where they spent nearly two decades, living and working in turn on five local farms. Four of them are The Bell Farm or Eakle Farm, The Dudley Farm, Mount Airy Farm (now included within Augusta County's Millway Place Industrial Park), and Mount Nebo. To supplement the family income at Mount Nebo, Anna made potato chips and churned butter from the milk of a cow that she purchased with her savings. Later, the couple bought a farm, Mount Airy, near Verona, Virginia; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. Having bought the house in January 1901, it was the first residence the family owned. They lived there until September 1902.
Five of the ten children born to them survived infancy. Although she loved living in the Shenandoah Valley, in 1905 Anna and Thomas moved to a farm in Eagle Bridge, New York at her husband's urging. When Thomas Moses was about 67 years of age in 1927, he died of a heart attack, after which Anna's son Forrest helped her operate the farm. She never married again. She retired and moved to a daughter's home in 1936. She was known as either "Mother Moses" or "Grandma Moses", and although she first exhibited as "Mrs. Moses", the press dubbed her "Grandma Moses", and the nickname stuck.