Grandma Moses in the 21st Century

Rating:
Summary: A catalog of an elderly painter's folk art
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: The Long - Ago Mother Of Us All
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: The Long - Ago Mother Of Us All
Review: 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.