GRANDMA MOSES Biography - Other artists & entretainers

 
 

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GRANDMA MOSES

Name: Anna Mary Robertson                                                           
Born: 7 September 1860 Greenwich, New York                                           
Died: 13 December 1961 (aged 101)                                                   
                                                                                     
Anna Mary Robertson Moses (September 7, 1860 - December 13, 1961), better known     
as "Grandma Moses" was a renowned American folk artist. She is often cited as an     
example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an           
advanced age.                                                                       
                                                                                     
Moses began painting in her seventies after abandoning a career in embroidery       
because of arthritis. Louis J. Caldor, a collector discovered her paintings in a     
Hoosick Falls, New York drugstore window in 1938. In 1939, an art dealer, Otto       
Kallir, exhibited some of her work in his Galerie Saint-Etienne in New York.         
This brought her to the attention of art collectors all over the world, and her     
paintings were highly sought after. She went on to exhibit her work throughout       
Europe and in Japan, where her work was particularly well received. She             
continued her prolific output of paintings, the demand for which never               
diminished during her lifetime. Grandma Moses painted mostly scenes of rural         
life. Some of her many paintings were used on the covers of Hallmark cards.         
                                                                                     
In 1946 her painting The Old Checkered Inn in Summer was featured in the             
background of a national advertising campaign.                                       
                                                                                     
President Harry S. Truman presented her with the Women's National Press Club         
Award Award for outstanding accomplishment in art in 1949, and in 1951 she           
appeared on See It Now, a television program hosted by Edward R. Murrow. In 1952     
she published her autobiography entitled Grandma Moses: My Life's History.           
                                                                                     
On her 100th birthday in 1960, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller proclaimed       
the day "Grandma Moses Day" in her honor.