Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City

Copied Grandma Moses, Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City, 1946, oil on canvas, 36 3⁄4 × 48 in. (93.3 × 121.9 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Kallir Family in memory of Otto Kallir, 2016.51, © Grandma Moses Properties

Artwork Details

Title
Grandma Moses Goes to the Big City
Artist
Date
1946
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
36 3⁄4 × 48 in. (93.3 × 121.9 cm)
Copyright
© Grandma Moses Properties
Credit Line
Gift of the Kallir Family in memory of Otto Kallir
Mediums
Mediums Description
oil on canvas
Classifications
Subjects
  • Architecture — vehicle — automobile
  • Landscape — road
  • Landscape — farm
  • Animal — sheep
  • Figure group — family
  • Animal — horse
  • Occupation — farm — sowing
  • Animal — cattle
  • Architecture Exterior — farm — barn
  • Architecture Exterior — domestic — farmhouse
Object Number
2016.51
Linked Open Data
https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/2016.51

Artwork Description

In 1946, Moses depicted herself at the crossroads of farm and fame, in a moment when her horizons expanded, literally and figuratively. The setting is her Eagle Bridge farm. A man plows, children play, sheep graze, and roads lead to the distant horizons that the readying automobile will soon travel.

At center, people bustle around a woman in a black dress. It is Moses herself, in November of 1940, preparing for her first trip to New York City, to see her paintings on view at Gimbels department store and greet the fans whose admiration would affirm her newfound celebrity. "There was a request for me to go to the big city, New York, for a Thanksgiving celebration in Gimbels' auditorium, where they had hung the Grandma Moses pictures," she recalled. "Grandma, who had never travelled much--what anticipation and vexation, what commotion and confusion, at last she was on her way!"

 Exhibition Label for Grandma Moses: A Good Day's Work October 24, 2025 -- July 12, 2026