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7/31/2016 9:34 am  #1


Grandma Moses

Anna Mary Robertson Moses (September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961), known by her nickname Grandma Moses, was a renowned American folk artist. Having begun painting in earnest at the age of 78, she is often cited as an example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an advanced age. Her works have been shown and sold in the United States and abroad and have been marketed on greeting cards and other merchandise. Moses' paintings are among the collections of many museums. The Sugaring Off was sold for US $1.2 million in 2006.

Moses has appeared on magazine covers, television, and in a documentary of her life. She wrote her autobiography, won numerous awards and was awarded two honorary doctoral degrees.

The New York Times said of her: "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."

Style
Moses painted scenes of rural life[9] from earlier days, which she called "old-timey" New England landscapes. Moses said that she would "get an inspiration and start painting; then I'll forget everything, everything except how things used to be and how to paint it so people will know how we used to live." She omitted features of modern life, like tractors and telephone poles, from her works of art.

Her early style is less individual and more realistic or primitive, despite her lack of knowledge of, or perhaps rejection of, basic perspective. Initially she created simple compositions or copied existing images. As her career advanced she created complicated, panoramic compositions of rural life.

She was a prolific painter, generating over 1,500 canvasses in three decades.Initially Moses charged $3 to $5 for a painting, depending upon its size, and as her fame increased her works were sold for $8,000 to $10,000. Her winter paintings are reminiscent of some such of the known winter paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, although she had never seen his work. A German fan of her work said, "There emanates from her paintings a light-hearted optimism; the world she shows us is beautiful and it is good. You feel at home in all these pictures, and you know their meaning. The unrest and the neurotic insecurity of the present day make us inclined to enjoy the simple and affirmative outlook of Grandma Moses."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Moses

Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont, holds the largest public collection of Moses's paintings.
http://benningtonmuseum.org/








We live in a time in which decent and otherwise sensible people are surrendering too easily to the hectoring of morons or extremists. 
 

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