Grandma Moses 1860-1961
Before we talk about today s artist, we need to learn a few words that will help us when we look at her work. Does anyone know what a landscape is? A picture of scenery, it could be a painting of mountains, desert, meadows, woods; always outdoors. This artist painted scenes of the land around her. She made these landscapes more interesting by including people in her paintings. She also loved to show the different seasons in her work. Can anyone tell me the four seasons? As we look at her work, I want you to tell me what season she is showing in her landscape and what clues helped you to figure it out. Enough talking, let s see some art! Slide 1 Please take a moment and look at this landscape painting. What season is it? How did you know, what clues are there? Remember that I told you that this artist painted scenes of her surroundings? Do you think that she lived in Florida? Why not? This artist lived in New York State (where there are snowy winters), not far from Fairfield. There is something very interesting about this artist that I have not told you yet. Let me tell you her story. The artist s real name is Anna Mary Robertson Moses. As an adult, she enjoyed doing needlepoint and embroidery. Does anyone know what needlepoint is? It is where you take different colored thread and a needle and make a design on cloth. Has anyone ever seen needlepoint on a pillow or framed on a wall? As Anna got older, her eyesight started to become poor. She had trouble seeing her tiny stitches. So she traded in her needle for a paintbrush. Can anyone guess what age she was when she began to paint? She was 71 years old a grandmother. She put her paintings in the window of the drug store in her small town in the hopes that someone might buy one. One day an art collector was passing through, liked her work and brought it to a dealer in New York City and before you knew it, her work was in high demand.
No one really knows of Anne Mary Robertson Moses by her real name, everyone calls her Grandma Moses because she started her painting career as a grandmother. She lived to be 101 years old and got to be very famous.. Slide 2 Here is a picture of her on the cover of Time magazine about 50 years ago. Here is another one of her landscape paintings: Slide3 Who can tell me what season it is? What clues did you use? How are the colors different from the work we saw before? Is the setting a city scene? It is of a farm where they are doing some of the duties that need to be done in the fall.
Slide 4 Which season is shown here? What are the people doing? The title of this work is More Fun. Let s have some fun of our own. Take a good look at the painting, let s play a hide-and-seek game. Slide 5 Who can find these children in the painting? (Lower left corner) Slide 6 Can you find this snow covered building?
Slide 7 What season do you think this is? Do you see any people in this painting? The name of it is All is Quiet. Do you get a quiet feeling when you look at this painting? Slide 8 What season is shown here? Winter again. Tell me some things that you see. Church steeple in the background, some evergreen trees, large tress that have lost their leaves, a horse pulling a sleigh or carriage. Slide 9 Does anyone know what this man is doing? He is collecting sap from the maple trees. Do you see the buckets hung on the tree trunks? The sap runs in to the buckets and it is collected and boiled down to make maple syrup. Do you see anyone else working to collect the sap?
Slide 10 Can you find any of these figures? Tell me about the size of the people in these paintings. They are very small. Why? She is painting a broad scene and the people have to be small in relation to the landscape. The further away the people and objects are, the smaller they need to be. See how tiny the figures in the back are compared to the oones in the front? Slide 11 What season does this look like? The name of this painting is July Harvest Time. It is the end of the summer and it is time to take in the harvest. Can you find the curving fence? Look on either side of the fence. Does the fence divide the painting? The background (the back part of the picture) looks very different than the foreground (the part of the painting in the front). Grandma Moses used the fence as a line to break up her painting. Can anyone se the dirt road in the background?
Slide 12 What is happening here? How can you tell there is a storm? The dark clouds, the trees are bending to the wind. What does it appear the people are doing? Bringing in the harvest. What season must it be? Let s review some of what we learned today about Grandma Moses and her work. Points to include Landscape Seasons Size of people, animals and objects are small to fit in with the scenery Started painting at 71 years old Lived in New York If you still have time at the end of the presentation, you can take a look back at some of the landscapes and ask the children to list al the different things/people they can find. What activities are the people doing?