In Great-Grandma's Footsteps

Beneath the six-paned windows that look out over summer greenery, tubes of paint, brushes, and sketches litter a table in the workplace of Will Moses, great-grandson of Anna Mary Robertson Moses—known to everyone as “Grandma” Moses.

In the same white clapboard farmhouse where Grandma Moses turned to her childhood pastime of painting at age 75, tradition lives on with Will, his wife, Sharon, and their three children. Will Moses raises Scotch Highland cattle and chickens, but his lifework continues a family’s folk-art legacy.

The historic homestead is in Eagle Bridge, N.Y. It’s a rustic world close to America’s heart: a patchwork of plowed fields, wash hanging out on a sunny day, and festive town gatherings. In Washington County near the Vermont border, today’s community of some 500 people live among the same rolling hills and stately maples that Grandma Moses captured on canvas earlier in the century—and that still inspire her great-grandson.

When Grandma Moses began painting, she had no idea what art was and had never been to a museum. Christmas cards, calendar tops, and postcards were her inspirations. At first, she copied old Currier and Ives prints, transforming them by her personal, simple style detailed with many a person, flower, or tree, and colored with anything bright.

Instead of selling pictures, she gave them to friends and once exhibited works at a country fair. “I won a prize for my fruit and jam,” she reminisced, “but no pictures.”

In October 1940, her first one-woman show, What a Farmwife Painted, opened to favorable reviews. A newspaper reporter nicknamed the unlikely artist, “Grandma Moses,” and an American symbol was born.

The public easily understood the art and was captivated by the plainspoken woman who created it. On her 100th birthday, former Gov. Nelson Rockefeller proclaimed “Grandma Moses Day” in New York State. When she passed away the following year, in 1961, America lost a national treasure.

With images rooted in the down-home values of Eagle Bridge, her paintings have a timeless quality. Their colorful compositions convey a deep love of place and give meaning to the lasting values she represented.

It is to these values that Will Moses commits himself. Will credits Grandma Moses with his own success. She taught her son, Forrest, to paint—and Forrest, also an artist, taught painting skills to his grandchildren.

Will paints in a more detailed style than his famous relative, but many of his works contain the same country and nostalgic themes. He grew up surrounded by this type of painting and knows it well.

In Grandma Moses’ barn, now converted to a studio and the Mt. Nebo Gallery, Will explains how he takes what he has seen in old photographs and in his own imagination to make an interesting painting.

“I think about my forebears a lot, especially my grandfather. It’s inescapable. When you grow up around your elders, they teach you right and wrong, how to live. They stay with you.”

Will inherited a love for the simple rhythm of family and home. “I’ve traveled around a bit, but Eagle Bridge is always home.”

Cynthia Elyce Rubin lives in New York City.

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