Grandma Moses: in the 21st Century [Hardcover]

Jane Kallir (Author), Roger Cardinal (Contributor), Michael D. Hall (Contributor), Lynda Roscoe Hartigan (Contributor), Judith Stein (Contributor)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1, 2001

Grandma Moses and her paintings first came to public attention in 1940, when she was 80 years old. Her folk art, down-home personality, and background as a farmer and homemaker charmed the American public. By the time she died at the age of 101, she had completed over 1600 works of art and had established an international reputation. The work of 'the white-haired girl', a self-taught artist who was a regular news feature for two decades, remained enormously popular at home and abroad even in the years after her death. For this reevaluation of the work of Grandma Moses, Jane Kallir contributes an authoritative introduction and presents a catalogue that illustrates 87 of Moses' most important works. Kallir traces Moses' development as an artist from the first embroidered landscapes to the glorious paintings of her 'old-age style'. The Grandma Moses myth is tackled from various perspectives. Roger Cardinal examines the artist's working methods, exploring the relationship between the actual regional landscape and her interpretation of the area. Michael D. Hall places Moses within the context of contemporary artistic and social movements of the 1940s and 1950s. Lynda Roscoe Hartigan reveals how memory and imagination merge in the paintings. And Judith E. Stein discusses the role of gender in shaping the artist's reputation in the postwar years. This handsome volume is the catalogue for a major exhibition that will be seen during 2001-2002 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., the San Diego Museum of Art (California), the Orlando Museum of Art (Florida), the Brooklyn Museum of Art (New York), the Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa, Oklahoma), the Columbus Museum of Art (Ohio), and the Portland Art Museum (Oregon).

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Grandma Moses, a self-taught artist from upstate New York who first came to public attention at the age of 80, created 1600 works before her death at the age of 101. Recognized as the foremost authority on Moses, Kallir (Grandma Moses: 25 Masterworks) joined forces with other contributors to produce this catalog for an exhibition that opened in March at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington, DC) and will travel nationwide through 2002. For the exhibit, Kallir selected 87 works from both public and private collections. What results is not merely a coffee-table book full of folksy paintings. Scholarly essays detail the relationship between the regional landscape and the artist's interpretation of the area, describe how memory and imagination merge in the paintings, place Moses's art within the artistic and social movements of the Forties and Fifties, and discuss the role of gender in shaping the artist's reputation in the postwar years. This is the most extensive book on Moses currently available, though several biographies have been published for children. Recommended for fine and folk art collections in large public and academic libraries. Judith Yankielun Lind, Roseland Free P.L., NJ
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Grandma Moses is an amalgam of wisdom, nostalgia, and idealism that should place her firmly in the U.S.'s artistic heritage. -- Choice

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (March 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300089279
• ISBN-13: 978-0300089271
• Product Dimensions: 11.6 x 9.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,424,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A catalog of an elderly painter's folk art, June 6, 2001

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Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grandma Moses: in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

Grandma Moses In The 21st Century is a catalog of an elderly painter's folk art and provides an excellent survey of her works including an intricate examination of her working methods, her interpretive process, and her role in the context of modern art and social movements of her times, in the 1940s and 50s. The result is an excellent catalog which features important analyses of her achievements and displays her notable works in lavish, full page color.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Long - Ago Mother Of Us All, July 12, 2004

By 

J. E. Barnes - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grandma Moses: in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

Prepared in conjunction with "a major exhibition, organized and circulated by Art Services International," Grandma Moses In The 21st Century (2001) represents an academic reassessment of the celebrated folk artist's work for audiences of the new millennium. While the two longest sections (Roger Cardinal's excellent essay, "The Sense of Time and Place," and Jane Kallir's commentary on the 87 plates) are sound, other segments underscore the wide cultural divide that continues to exist between the abstraction - tending perspective of some art scholars and the general public's capacity for spontaneous appreciation for various kinds of painting and other cultural products.

The paintings of Anna Mary Robertson Moses, which are predominantly landscapes, were initially and earnestly created by an uneducated, unprivileged, "common" "farm woman" of advanced years as gifts for her family, friends, and social peers. When brought to mass public attention in the Forties, the paintings were widely embraced by Americans of all walks of life for their inherent combination of unique talent, nostalgia for family, home, and community, apparent simplicity of method, sentimentality, anecdotal style, and vision of the country's agricultural past. Indeed, most of the paintings suggest a bucolic, Eden - like utopia in which regular and vigorous hard work is nonetheless a necessity for all able - bodied citizens.

Though Moses' paintings were initially embraced and promoted by elements within the cultural elite of the Forties, the wider public continued to cherish - and avidly purchase commercial reproductions of - Moses' work long after the art world that had discovered her had lost interest. Whether photographed with President Truman, interviewed in her home by Edward R. Murrow, or appearing on the cover of Life magazine, by the advent of the Fifties, Moses was celebrated as a quintessentially American icon in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin, Johnny Appleseed, Washington Irving, Clara Barton, Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, Amelia Earhart, or Gary Cooper.

The process of promoting Moses was assisted by several key figures over the decades, but in Moses' case, nothing about her public image was fabricated, and her paintings, like her persona, sold themselves. As a hard - working, elderly widow who advocated traditional American values like industry and self - sufficiency, and whose appearance and mannerisms bespoke of a bygone era, Moses perfectly embodied an idealized representation of the archetypal "benign great grandmother," a figure most people, regardless of background, are sensitive to. Only 8 years after her death at 101 in 1961, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp bearing her name and a detail from her painting 'July Fourth.'

There is probably no major American artist whose work needs academic interpretation less than Moses', and while critical assessments of her work and life are welcomed, the balance of the essays in Grandma Moses In The 21st Century read like superfluous, self - important, and slightly pretentious padding, especially since the paintings speak perfectly well for themselves in a plain visual language assessable to all.

However, John Cardinal's investigative, straight forward, and always - relevant discussion of Moses is a model of what a good art essay should be, and Jane Kallir's plate - by - plate commentary provides the necessary factual information required without straying into unnecessary theory. The 87 color plates are gloriously reproduced and represent all periods of the artist's creative life.

Those who would like more information on Moses' life and work may also want to seek out a copy of Grandma Moses: My Life's History (1948), sadly out of print but still widely available via secondhand sources.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars thes best of grandma moses.., July 28, 2005

By 

Deborah A. Pullen (dahlonega, ga) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Grandma Moses: in the 21st Century (Hardcover)

great historical information... beautiful photographs... a wonderful gift for collectors of grandma moses..