Grandma Moses

Grandma Moses, professional name of Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860-1961), American artist, born in Washington County, New York State, and for most of her life a farmer's wife. Without formal art training and largely self-educated, she began to paint rural scenes for her own pleasure while in her late 70s.

When her work was exhibited in a drugstore window, it attracted the attention of the New York art collector Louis Calder. This led to Moses's discovery by the New York art world. In 1939 three of her landscapes were displayed in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1940 the Galerie St Étienne in New York presented her first solo show; this launched her career as an artist. Her work is characterized by harmonious arrangement of figures and simple, decorative treatment, as in Thanksgiving Turkey (1943, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). See also Naive Art.