Grandma Moses

Born on September 7, 1860, on a farm in Greenwich, New York, Anna Mary Robertson (who later became known as "Grandma Moses") had only a few months' schooling during the summers of her childhood. As a child Moses had drawn pictures and colored them with the juice of berries and grapes. After her husband died she created embroidery pictures, and when her arthritis made manipulating a needle too difficult, she turned to painting. Throughout her lifetime Grandma …

…rainbow, is the white-steeple church found in many of her paintings. As was characteristic of her later stylistic developments, the figures in "Rainbow" are composed of more fluid brush strokes, and her color, while less true to nature, is abundant in its more spontaneous emotional quality. The contrast between the rather primitive treatment of figures and buildings and the relative naturalism of the landscape elements can be ascribed to the fact that she was self-taught.