Otto Kallir (1894–1978)

Anna Mary Robertson Moses, dubbed Grandma Moses by the New York Herald Tribune in its review of her first show at Kallir's gallery, is the best-known of America's self-taught artists. Art collector Louis Caldor saw Moses's paintings for the first time at Easter, 1938, in the window at the Woman's Exchange in Thomas's Drugstore in Hoosick Falls, New York. From that moment, he worked to gain recognition for her work. He succeeded in getting three of her pieces accepted for a show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1939 and in attracting the attention of gallery owner Otto Kallir, who gave her a one-person show in 1940 in his new New York gallery. This volume benefits from Kallir's first-hand acquaintance with Moses and her work. It is through his efforts that we have access to a catalog of 1,600 works created over a 30-year period. Kallir makes an important point about American self-taught artists:
"In contrast to Europe, no art schools had existed in America until
well into the nineteenth century. People who painted had to find
their own technical and artistic means of expression" (p. 65).
The paintings Moses began creating in her late seventies "when housework became too strenuous for her" (p. 19) are the body of work that is known, but, like many other self-taught artists, she had been creating art since childhood. We are fortunate that she lived past the one hundred one mark, allowing her to share with the future a vast body of work embodying her memories of rural life in the eastern United States. (February 1997)… (mehr)