I am Mary Robertson the successful famous artist in a difficult time

Unless you’re a fan of folk art, you may not be familiar with Anna Mary Robertson more popularly known as Grandma Moses. She was a renowned American folk artist whose paintings became immensely popular and well regarded. She was featured on the cover of LIFE magazine September 19, 1960 in honor of her 100 th birthday. All of this happened after she’d lived a full life and was settling into retirement.

Born September 7, 1860 in Greenwich in upstate New York, Anna was the daughter of a farming family. She was one of 10 children and worked on her family farm until she married her husband at the age of 27. She and her husband moved to Virginia and established a farm there. She gave birth to 10 children, five of which died in infancy and lived her life as a farming wife for the next twenty years. In 1905 she and her husband moved back to Eagle Bridge, New York not far from her birthplace. Her husband died in 1927 but she continued to run the farm with her son until her advanced age caused her to retire from farming in 1936. She moved in with one of her daughters and finally had the luxury of relaxing and pursuing her artistic interests.

Always creative, Anna would use her talents to spruce up her home. She was a practical woman and found ways to channel her creativity into more practical uses. She would decorate the house injecting her creativity where it was most appropriate.

Initially she did embroidery, creating basic rural scenes on worsted wool cloth. Her embroidered pictures were always admired by family and friends. But when she was in her 70’s she started painting. Some stories say that she started painting because arthritis made it tough for her to wield a needle. Other stories say she switched to painting because the fabrics used in embroidery could be eaten by moths. Either way, she switched from something she’d done all her life to something new.

Her early paintings were given as gifts and sold in local shops for $3-$5. Initially they were of the same rural scenes she used in her embroidery pieces. An art collector discovered her pieces on a visit to Eagle Bridge, bought them all and ultimately featured some of them in an exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The 1938 exhibit was called “Contemporary Unknown American Painters”.

She was soon officially discovered and featured in her first solo exhibit called “What a Farm Wife Painted” in 1940. That exhibit went well and she started having more. In fact in the 1950’s her exhibits were so popular they broke attendance records all over the world.

She was a source of inspiration to women all over the world. Not only was she a farmer’s wife who changed her life once she stopped farming she followed her creative dreams in the process. She showed women of that time it was possible to be successful doing something outside of being a wife and mother. 

When she died in 1961, Grandma Moses was a cultural icon. She inspired many women to pursue their dreams no matter their age. She’s a great example of being open to changing perspective and not giving up on your calling.

Grandma Moses is an excellent example of being open to changing perspective. She did it multiple times over the course of a long, rich life. She was born in a time when women didn’t have a lot of life choices. As children they followed the lead of their mothers often taking care of the home and/or family farm. Once they got older, they were married off to become the caretaker of their husband and children. Oftentimes they didn’t attend school or if they did, it only lasted until they were needed to work at home. 

But Grandma Moses had a creative calling. She found functional ways to express her creativity while living her life as a farmer’s wife and mother. Then when she couldn’t do embroidery any more, she fed her creativity through painting. She could have stopped there and continued to only give her art as gifts but she took it a step further and began to sell her work. 

Not only was she open to expanding her mode of creative expression, she was open to selling it to others. She essentially became a “sell out” as some artists might say because she began to make money from her craft. Granted her pieces weren’t initially going for much money but they’re what helped her get the attention of the New York arts scene and ultimately the world.