A few days ago, my friend Morag and her darling daughter Lily, went to the National Portrait Gallery to see my portrait of Grandma Moses that is currently on display in their exhibition of recent acquistions. They sent me this great photo of Lily who is a big art fan. My adoring public, sigh…….does it get any better than this?
Grandma Moses c Kristin Helberg 1996, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian
In May of 2011, my portrait of Grandma Moses was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian as part of their permanent collection. It is currently on display there at the museum in Washington with other recent acquisitions and the show will be up until the end of October 2012.
I was born in upstate New York and my family moved away. But on frequent visits to visit my grandparents, my mother would drive us by the area in Hoosick Falls, NY where Grandma Moses’s farm was located with the hopes that we would catch a glimpse of her. We never did, but I admired her greatly. In 1996, I made the portrait of Grandma Moses, working with photographs of her painting in her kitchen studio. I made sure to show the Maxwell coffee cans that she used to hold her paints and her little work table with the painted scenes on either end.
Maryl Robertson Moses, aka, Grandma Moses is a woman we can all admire. She ran her farm, raised her children and did not even begin painting until she was in her 70′s creating a career for herself and international acclaim.