Grandma Moses: American Modern Hardcover – June 14, 2016

Great read and lovely insight into the artist

Beautifully done book illustrating Grandma Moses works. Very pleased with my purchase.

I liked everything about this book. I may never get to see an original painting, but the fine reproductions provide a good overview of the artist's work.

This book covers a lot of aspects of Grandma Moses's life and offers a different insight than other books. The illustrations are excellent, but it is more than a "coffee table" book, offering interesting chapters along with the pictures.

Thorough, interesting. The exhibit tries to put Grandma Moses in her national context but this is less interesting than the work itself.

What a beautiful Art book. I think she is an amazing artist and love her work. Recommend this book.

The immense popularity and commercial success of Grandma Moses diminished her status in the eyes of some American Art critics. The authors of this book take a new look at her work and her place in American art history. They relate her art-making practices, not only to nineteen-century art, but to artists of her own century. She borrowed imagery from many sources as assiduously as did Picasso and Warhol, for example. In 1939 her work was shown in New York at the Museum of Modern Art, according her a place in modernism, or at least in the folk art branch of the movement.I don't personally feel that Moses has to be called an American Modern to be seen as a serious artist, or a significant figure in American art. But this view of Moses is certainly thought provoking. It leads the authors into analyzing the artist's techniques and creative approach in order to relate her to her contemporaries, and looking at how Moses worked is very interesting.I found the chapter on Shirley Jackson and Grandma Moses a bit of a stretch. The author juxtaposes their negative and positive views of village life to make points about their creative process. This essay might appeal to readers with an academic bent. I did appreciate the biographical tidbits in this chapter.The final chapter puts Grandma Moses in historic context, and I found this especially enlightening. The happy pictures Moses painted idealizing America's rural past offered the perfect anecdote to the morose mood of postwar America. Her sentimental images of house and home encouraged Americans to seek the good life in a detached home in the leafy suburbs.I may not agree on all points with the rebranding of Grandma Moses presented in this book. But the authors are art experts, and I have no credentials. In any case, it's refreshing to see some new art criticism emerge on this iconic American artist. The book is very well written, too, always a plus.Moses' bright and cheery art lends itself to reproduction, and graphically this book is a delight -- page after page of charming paintings beautifully reproduced. The book is a catalog for the wonderful Grandma Moses exhibit now at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont. I live in the area and intend to go often. The exhibit runs through October 30, 2016.

beautiful pics.