Grandma Moses, Eagle Bridge Hotel, 1959, oil on pressed wood; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, Gift of the Kallir Family in honor of Otto Kallir, 2024.60. © Grandma Moses Properties Co., NY.
Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work repositions Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses (1860–1961) as a multidimensional force in American art, whose beloved painted recollections of rural life earned her a distinctive place in the post-World War II cultural imagination. The exhibition reveals how Moses’ art fused creativity, labor, and memories from a century-long life. Moses spent the majority of her life in rural New York and Virginia working as a housekeeper, farmer, and mother, occasionally painting or embroidering in her spare time. She was 80 years old in 1940 when she stepped tentatively into the limelight with her first solo exhibition. “Grandma Moses,” as she was dubbed by the press, became a media sensation, achieving a superstar celebrity that raised questions in her time and remains intriguing today. Moses wielded creativity, hope, and unity as tools for shaping a life that she would later reflect on as “a good day’s work.”