Grandma Moses
Although Grandma Moses didn’t pick up a paint brush until she was
seventy, she still had time to become world famous, with shows in the
U.S., Europe, and Asia. She continued painting for more than thirty
years.
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Very few artists are able to make a living from their art. Even fewer become famous
around the world, set attendance records when their work is displayed, and have their
paintings hanging everywhere from the White House to European and Asian museums.
Only one artist has ever done all of that, despite the fact that she had no training and
didn’t even start painting until she was more than seventy years old!
The incredible story of Anna “Grandma“ Moses sounds like a corny movie plot, but it’s
all true.
The mother of ten children, Moses was a very active grandmother and great-grandmother,
known in the little town of Hoosick Falls, New York for doing lovely embroidery. But
arthritis was making it more difficult for her to do her needlework, and she wanted to
make a Christmas gift for her postman. Moses decided to try painting him a picture
instead.
The postman loved his painting, and Moses found that she enjoyed working with paint
and canvas. Soon she was painting all the time, and giving her artwork away to friends
and relatives.
Anna Moses’s paintings were so charming that other people wanted to buy them, so the