GENERAL DESCRIPTION
The Owlkill River is a tributary of the Hoosick River in upstate New York, near the farm where Anna Mary Robertson (popularly known as "Grandma") Moses lived and worked. Like all of Moses' paintings, this winter scene is a combination of real locations and buildings from her neighborhood, her memories of childhood, and compositions taken from popular prints by the 19th-century lithographers Currier & Ives.
Although she drew as a child, Moses did not begin making pictures until she was in her 70s, after a long life as a farmer in New York and Virginia. She first worked in fabric, and then moved to paint because it was less difficult for her arthritic hands. Through the promotion of several art dealers trumpeting naïve or folk art as an antidote to abstraction, Moses became an overnight sensation in the 1940s. Until her death at 101, Moses produced more than 1,500 paintings over her twenty-year career.
Excerpt from
William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy, 2007.
NOTES
Created 1950
Rebecca Singerman worked on this note.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Moses, Anna Mary Robertson (American, 1860-1961)
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin and depicted location: Eagle Bridge (inhabited place/New York): 2068883
Depicted location: Owl Kill (stream/New York): 2563483
Process/materials
Acrylic on board
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
From 1996: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the E.E. Fogelson and Greer Garson Fogelson Charitable Foundation, from the Estate of Greer Garson Fogelson
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Bennington Art Museum, Bennington, VT~Read a biography of Grandma Moses.
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC~Learn more about the life and work of Grandma Moses.
- Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA~Grandma Moses and Norman Rockwell were good friends—he had a home in South Vermont, not far from her farm in Eagle Bridge, New York. View the 1948 Saturday Evening Post cover, Christmas Homecoming, in which Norman Rockwell included Grandma Moses in the crowd of people.
ARCHIVAL RESOURCES
FUN FACTS
- Beginning in her lifetime, Grandma Moses paintings were commonly reproduced as mass marketed greeting cards, fabrics, and china plates. The DMA has a Grandma Moses plate manufactured by Atlas China in its permanent collection. (2002.1.53)
TEACHING IDEAS
RULES
Apply to objects where number equals 1996.215
Category
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General Description
The Owlkill River is a tributary of the Hoosick River in upstate New York, near the farm where Anna Mary Robertson (popularly known as "Grandma") Moses lived and worked. Like all of Moses' paintings, this winter scene is a combination of real locations and buildings from her neighborhood, her memories of childhood, and compositions taken from popular prints by the 19th-century lithographers Currier & Ives.
Although she drew as a child, Moses did not begin making pictures until she was in her 70s, after a long life as a farmer in New York and Virginia. She first worked in fabric, and then moved to paint because it was less difficult for her arthritic hands. Through the promotion of several art dealers trumpeting naïve or folk art as an antidote to abstraction, Moses became an overnight sensation in the 1940s. Until her death at 101, Moses produced more than 1,500 paintings over her twenty-year career.
Excerpt from
William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label copy, 2007.
Fun Facts
- Beginning in her lifetime, Grandma Moses paintings were commonly reproduced as mass marketed greeting cards, fabrics, and china plates. The DMA has a Grandma Moses plate manufactured by Atlas China in its permanent collection. (2002.1.53)
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Bennington Art Museum, Bennington, VT~Read a biography of Grandma Moses.
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC~Learn more about the life and work of Grandma Moses.
- Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA~Grandma Moses and Norman Rockwell were good friends—he had a home in South Vermont, not far from her farm in Eagle Bridge, New York. View the 1948 Saturday Evening Post cover, Christmas Homecoming, in which Norman Rockwell included Grandma Moses in the crowd of people.
Notes
Created 1950
Rebecca Singerman worked on this note.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Moses, Anna Mary Robertson (American, 1860-1961)
Cultures
Geography
Place of origin and depicted location: Eagle Bridge (inhabited place/New York): 2068883
Depicted location: Owl Kill (stream/New York): 2563483
Process/materials
Acrylic on board
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
From 1996: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the E.E. Fogelson and Greer Garson Fogelson Charitable Foundation, from the Estate of Greer Garson Fogelson
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
rules
Apply To
Objects
number
Equals
1996.215
source file
object_notes_1_b-0282.xml.nores