30 Facts About Grandma Moses

Anna Mary Robertson Moses, or Grandma Moses, was an American folk artist.

Grandma Moses began painting in earnest at the age of 78 and is a prominent example of a newly successful art career at an advanced age.

Grandma Moses's autobiography, titled My Life's History, was published in 1952.

Grandma Moses was a live-in housekeeper for a total of 15 years, starting at age 12.

Grandma Moses embroidered pictures with yarn, until disabled by arthritis.

Grandma Moses was able to capture the excitement of winter's first snow, Thanksgiving preparations and the new, young green of oncoming spring.

Grandma Moses' work has been a subject of numerous museum exhibitions worldwide and has been extensively merchandised, such as on greeting cards.

Grandma Moses was raised with four sisters and five brothers.

Grandma Moses's father ran a flax mill and was a farmer.

Grandma Moses was inspired to paint by taking art lessons at school.

Grandma Moses continued to keep house, cook, and sew for wealthy families for 15 years.

At age 27, she worked on the same farm with Thomas Salmon Grandma Moses, a "hired man".

When Thomas Grandma Moses was about 67 years of age in 1927, he died of a heart attack, after which Anna's son Forrest helped her operate the farm.

Grandma Moses retired and moved to a daughter's home in 1936.

Grandma Moses created quilted objects, a form of "hobby art".

Grandma Moses told reporters that she turned to painting in order to create the postman's Christmas gift, seeing as it "was easier to make [a painting] than to bake a cake over a hot stove".

Grandma Moses liked to see us draw pictures, it was a penny a sheet and lasted longer than candy.

Grandma Moses painted scenes of rural life from earlier days, which she called "old-timey" New England landscapes.

Grandma Moses was a prolific painter, generating more than 1,500 canvasses in three decades.

Grandma Moses initially charged $3 to $5 for a painting, depending upon its size, and as her fame increased her works were sold for $8,000 to $10,000.

Grandma Moses bought their supply and ten more from her Eagle Bridge house for $3 or $5 each.

The next year, three Grandma Moses paintings were included in New York's Museum of Modern Art exhibition titled "Contemporary Unknown American Painters".

Grandma Moses's paintings were exhibited throughout Europe and the United States over the next 20 years.

The paintings of Grandma Moses were used to publicize American holidays, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Mother's Day.

Grandma Moses died at age 101 on December 13,1961, at the Health Center in Hoosick Falls, New York.

Grandma Moses is buried there at the Maple Grove Cemetery.

The character Daisy "Granny" Moses on The Beverly Hillbillies, was named as an homage to Grandma Moses, who died shortly before the series began.

Norman Rockwell and Grandma Moses were friends who lived over the Vermont-New York state border from each other.

Grandma Moses lived in Eagle Bridge, New York and after 1938 the Rockwells had a house in nearby Arlington, Vermont.

Grandma Moses appears on the far left edge in the Norman Rockwell painting Christmas Homecoming, which was printed on The Saturday Evening Posts December 25,1948, cover.