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This crisp masterpiece epitomizes Moses’ mature landscape style, where people of all ages live in harmony with nature.
Exhibition History“Folk Art from the Collection of the New York State Historical Association,” Museum of American Folk Art, NY, January 11, 2000 – February 18, 2000.
“American Treasures from the Fenimore Art Museum,” The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, February 11, 2004 – April 16, 2004.
“Grandma Moses: Grandmother to the Nation,” John and Mabel Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL, January 25, 2008 – April 18, 2008; The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, September 8, 2007 – January 6, 2008; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN, May 19, 2007 – August 12, 2007; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, January 27, 2007 – April 22, 2007.
“Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
“Grandma Moses: Visions of America,” Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL, October 27, 2014 – March 9, 2015.
Artist
Anna Mary Robertson Moses (Grandma Moses)
(1860 - 1961)
Sugaring Off
Date1945
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsSight: 27 1/2 × 33 1/2 in. (69.9 × 85.1 cm)
Object numberN0415.1967
Credit LineCollection of the Fenimore Art Museum. Gift of Mrs. Stephen C. Clark
Image Copyright Holders: Grandma Moses Properties, Co. & Galerie St. Etien
Photograph by Richard Walker
Label TextSugaring Off is perhaps Moses’ favorite subject and she returned to it again and again throughout her career. It was inspired by the Currier and Ives lithograph Maple Sugaring, Early Spring in the Northern Woods (1870). Moses gathered hundreds of magazine and newspaper clippings of barns, houses, people, animals and machines to help her compose her pictures. She traced the outlines of her selected forms and then filled in basic detail. Faces were not naturalistic but consisted of two dots for eyes and one curved stroke for a smiling mouth. A huge kettle is heating to boil the syrup, and a person in the mid-foreground is preparing a sweet taffy known as “jack wax” in the snow while children watch.This crisp masterpiece epitomizes Moses’ mature landscape style, where people of all ages live in harmony with nature.
Exhibition History“Folk Art from the Collection of the New York State Historical Association,” Museum of American Folk Art, NY, January 11, 2000 – February 18, 2000.
“American Treasures from the Fenimore Art Museum,” The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL, February 11, 2004 – April 16, 2004.
“Grandma Moses: Grandmother to the Nation,” John and Mabel Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL, January 25, 2008 – April 18, 2008; The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, September 8, 2007 – January 6, 2008; Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, TN, May 19, 2007 – August 12, 2007; Reynolda House Museum of American Art, January 27, 2007 – April 22, 2007.
“Art of the Everyman: American Folk Art from the Fenimore Art Museum,” Florence Griswold Museum, Old Lyme, CT, May 28, 2014 – September 29, 2014.
“Grandma Moses: Visions of America,” Huntsville Museum of Art, Huntsville, AL, October 27, 2014 – March 9, 2015.
On View
On view
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