Grandma Moses winter scene
The Old Covered Bridge, 1943
Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma" Moses (1860-1961)
c. 1943
Mixed media and mica on canvas
35 ½” x 44 ¾”; in a contemporary gilded frame, 47” x 57”
Signed “Moses” lower left with labels on reverse bearing title "The Old Covered Bridge"
Provenance: Ms. Ida A. Wylie (1885-1959), 24 December 1943 (acquired from The American British Art Center, see attached label); Kristina Barbara Johnson Collection, Princeton, NJ
Exhibited: New York, The British American Art Center, 1943.; Baltimore, Maryland, American Visionary Art Museum, Golden Blessings of Old Age & Out of the Mouths of Babes, 4 October 2003 – 5 September 2004.
Literature: Kallir, Grandma Moses (1973), p. 292, no. 310.; Kogan and Bonesteel, “Creativity: Centenarians,” Visions, vol. 9 (Baltimore, 2003), pp. 18-19.
During the winter of 1943, the United States, along with much of the world, was in the midst of World War II. On Christmas Eve of that year, the American-British Art Center hosted a benefit sale. Founded in 1940 by European émigré Ala Story, the Center’s stated purpose was, “to help keep England’s art and artists alive while the rain of bombs continues over their homeland… The American British Art Center is continuing the work which so many galleries in London had to terminate. The Art Center is a non-profit organization and all net proceeds of all operations of the organization are being used to help artists in England who are in need of assistance (The Herald Statesman, 28 January 1941, p.8).” Exhibitions by Canadian and American artists supplemented the gallery’s exhibition output. Featured in the December 24th sale was a large canvas titled The Old Covered Bridge painted earlier in the month by an 80 year-old farmer named Anna Mary Robertson Moses. The painting, a winter scene, depicted a covered bridge in the foreground with various horse-drawn vehicles and a mill in the background, all covered with glistening snow. It was purchased by Princeton, NJ resident Ida A. Wylie.
For the first 78 years of her life, Anna Mary Roberson “Grandma” Moses ( 1860-1961) led a remarkably ordinary life as a wife and mother to ten children (five would survive childhood) on farms in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and, later, Eagle Bridge, New York. She expressed her inherently creative nature by creating pictures of embroidered yarn. She turned to painting after arthritis made working with a needle too painful. In 1938, New York collector Louis Caldor bought several of her works displayed in a local drug store window. The following year, he convinced Sidney Janis to include three of Moses’ works in a show at MoMA titled “Contemporary Unknown American Painters.” Her first solo exhibition was held in New York at Otto Kallir’s newly-opened Galerie St. Etienne in October 1940, followed by a showcase at Gimbel’s Department Store. In the following years, Moses was the subject of numerous one-man exhibitions at both Galerie St. Etienne, the American-British Art Center, and numerous museums and universities. She was the subject of a documentary film in 1950 and received numerous national honors. Upon her death in 1961, aged 101, President John F. Kennedy memorialized her, saying, “The death of Grandma Moses removed a beloved figure from American life. The directness and vividness of her paintings restored a primitive freshness to our perception of the American scene. Both her work and her life helped our nation renew its pioneer heritage and recall its roots in the countryside and frontier.”
The Old Covered Bridge is one of only approximately 20 large-size canvases of up to 36” x 48” painted between 1943 and 1950, which were given to the artist by Ala Story. Moses found working on these canvases difficult, as they did not fit the table on which she usually painted. Instead, she laid them flat on her bed and walked around it as she worked. Despite the awkward conditions, Moses recorded painting two large-format canvases on December 6, 1943. Both were snow-covered scenes painted from memory, depicting the pleasures of country life. The heavy snow on the trees and buildings is rendered in thick white impasto, in contrast to the smooth brushwork used in the distant mountains and sky. Depth, space, and scale are naively, but effectively, achieved by a gradual decrease in the size of buildings and trees. The second painting competed that day, titled Sugaring Off, was sold by the American-British Art Center to noted collector and lyricist Cole Porter and was later sold at Christie’s for a record price of $1.36 million in November 2006.
As noted above, The Old Covered Bridge was purchased by Ida Wylie (1885-1959), a noted novelist, screenwriter, and suffragette. Born in Australia, by 1917 Wylie had made her way to America, eventually settling in Hollywood. Over 30 movies were made based on her short stories. She lived in Princeton, NJ, from 1935 until she passed away in 1959. It was at an auction of Wylie’s belongings that Kristina Barbara Johnson purchased what would be her first work of American folk art in what would become an important personal collection. Born in Germany, Kristina came to the US as a student and worked as an artist’s agent in the advertising industry. She represented Andy Warhol during his career as a fashion illustrator. Her important collection of whaling artifacts was sold in a four-part sale at Sotheby’s, New York, in the 1980s. Johnson served on the board of the American Folk Art Museum and was a founder of the institution’s publication, The Clarion.