By Grandma Moses
Located in Surfside, FL
Dogwood Blossoms. 1949.
Dimensions: Tile 6 X 6 Frame 7.75 X 7.75 inches.
Provenance: The tile was in the possession of the Beers family and is from the estate.
Catalogue raisonné number at Galerie St Etienne: Kallir T #87
An exceedingly rare, authenticated, and hand painted floral decorated tile by Grandma Moses herself, fired by Helen Beers. Tile dated 1949 and signed moses recto as well as 'Moses Fired by Helen C. Beers, painted by Grandma Moses, Pinewold Pottery'. There are only a handful of these known to exist, approximately five, this being one of those five, outside the private collection of Galerie St. Etienne, Manhattan NY.
This listing is for the tile only. The photo archive, from the family, will be listed separately and is included here just for provenance and reference.
Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860 – 1961), or Grandma Moses, was an American folk artist. She began painting in earnest at the age of 78 and is a prominent example of a newly successful art career at an advanced age. Moses gained popularity during the 1950s, having been featured on a cover of Time Magazine in 1953. She was a subject of numerous television programs and of a 1950 Oscar-nominated biographical documentary. Her autobiography, titled My Life's History, was published in 1952. She was also awarded two honorary doctoral degrees. She embroidered pictures with yarn, until disabled by arthritis. In her 1961 obituary, The New York Times said: "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."
Moses's work has been a subject of numerous museum exhibitions worldwide and has been extensively merchandised, such as on greeting cards. In 2006, her 1943 painting titled Sugaring Off was sold at Christie's New York for US$1.36 million, setting an auction record for the artist. Her work is fundamental for any Naive art or Americana collection.
She was known as either "Mother Moses" or "Grandma Moses", and although she first exhibited as "Mrs. Moses", the press dubbed her "Grandma Moses", and the nickname stuck. As a young wife and mother, Moses was creative in her home; for example, in 1918 she used house paint to decorate a fireboard. Beginning in 1932, Moses used yarn to embroider pictures for friends and family. She created quilt objects, a form of "hobby art". Lucy R. Lippard stated in "The Word in Their Hands" that she found "hobby art" to be "an activity so 'low' on the art lists that it still ranks way below 'folk art'". She found that hobby art often involves reuse of otherwise discarded objects.
Moses painted scenes of rural life 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." From her works of art, she omitted features of modern life, such as tractors and telephone poles.
Her early style is less individual and more realistic or primitive, with a 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.
During a visit to Hoosick Falls in 1938, Louis J. Caldor, an art collector who worked as an engineer in the state of New York, saw paintings made by Moses in the window of a drug store. He bought their supply and ten more from her Eagle Bridge house for $3 or $5 each. The next year, three Grandma Moses paintings...
Category
1940s Folk Art More Art
