Anna Mary was the third child born into the Robertson
family in
1860. There would eventually be ten children in the family. She was
raised on a farm, attended school for a while, then when she was 12
years old she left home to become a hired hand at a near-by farm.
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She worked hard all the time she was growing up, then
when she was in
her twenties she married a man named Thomas Salmon Moses who was also a
hired worker. They rented different farms and were finally able to buy
a farm of their own. They had ten children, but five of them died when
they were babies. They were able to raise five of them.
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At this time she was called Mother Moses. She could do
many things and
enjoyed doing needlework such as sewing and embroidering. With thread
she would make pictures on the fabric, but she had arthritis and it
hurt her hands to push the needle through the material. When she was in
her late seventies she decided to take up painting which was easier on
her hands than needlework. Her first painting was made using
housepaint.
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She is called a "primitive" artist because she painted
simple pictures,
and she taught herself how to paint. In 1938 she has some pictures
displayed in a drugstore window when an art collector from New York
happened to see them. The story is told that Anna Mary's
daughter-in-law told the man that Grandma had ten paintings she might
sell. When she and Anna Mary counted the paintings, there were only
nine, so Grandma cut a large picture in half and reframed it into two
pictures to make the ten paintings.
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The man, Louis Caldor, asked someone to display some
of her pictures in
a collection called "Contemporary Unknown American Painters".
Nothing happened as a result of that showing.
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Then he introduced the owner of Galerie Saint Etienne
to her works and
Otto Kallir exhibited her paintings in his New York City art gallery.
The exhibit was called "What a Farm Wife Painted". By the time she was
80 years old, many people had heard of "Grandma Moses" and had seen her
paintings.
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She appeared on the Edward R. Murrow television show
and showed people how to paint a picture.
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She painted many pictures during her lifetime. When
she was 100 years
old she painted illustrations for "Twas the Night Before Christmas".
She died at age 101.
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Her paintings continue to be enjoyed by people of all
ages.
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You will enjoy reading The Year with Grandma Moses by W. Nikola-Lisa. It
features prints of paintings by her and some of her writings.
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