Getting Ready for Thanksgiving
Artist
Grandma Moses
(American, 1860–1961)
Date1948
Mediummixed media on board
Dimensionsboard: 50.8 x 38.1 cm (20 x 15 in.)
ClassificationsPaintings
Credit LineBequest of Penelope Rockwell
Object number2006.20
Label TextHaving spent most of her life in upstate New York, Grandma Moses depicted the life she led as both a farmer’s daughter and then later as a farmer’s wife. Although encouraged by her father to draw and paint during her childhood, she had no formal training when in her seventies she began to devote herself to painting large numbers of works in oil. As a woman who had witnessed the transformation of America from an agrarian to a technological society, Grandma Moses and her paintings reminded viewers of a bygone era with idealized depictions of small country homes, farmers’ markets, rolling hills and frolicking children. She became enormously popular and produced over 1,600 works before she passed away at age 101.
This scene is one of several that she painted depicting the catching of a turkey for the Thanksgiving feast. Here she contrasts the men chasing a turkey into a wooden pen with children chasing chickens around the farmyard. Her primitive treatment of the figures and naturalistic portrayal of the landscape is typical of Moses’s self-taught style. She often favored scenes tied to holidays and celebrations, particularly winter celebrations as it was a time of rest for farmers who had spent the warmer months planting and harvesting.
ProvenancePenelope Rockwell, Worcester, MAOn View
Not on view
1947