Grandma Moses American Primitive

Grandma Moses American Primitive was the first popular catalog of works by Grandma Moses by Otto Kallir, published in 1946.

Moses’ first solo exhibition had taken place in 1940 "What a Farmwife Painted", at the Galerie St. Etienne in New York. It was organized by Louis J. Caldor and Otto Kallir and since that time Kallir himself had become a firm admirer and promoter of the artist's work. He believed the choice of works in the 1940 exhibition "included many of her early attempts in which her great talent was scarcely recognizable."

Kallir decided to make a catalog based on Grandma Moses' own words on the occasion of her 85th birthday in 1945. He chose to add "American Primitive" to the title and gave the work the subtitle "Forty paintings with comments by Grandma Moses - together with her life's history". He then wrote an essay that partially rejected the "primitive" label that he felt responsible for, writing "It is important, however, not to confuse “primitive” with “self-taught” artists."

Louis Bromfield wrote the introduction, and Hildegard Bachert transcribed interviews with the artist to develop an ego-document that could be illustrated with a selection of paintings that reflected events and scenes from her life. The selection of paintings each accompanied a story from the artist's childhood in her own words. Two of the forty paintings were illustrated in color (Sugaring Off, and Old Oaken Bucket). Though the text and formatting were the same, the second edition switched the order of the paintings that accompanied the artist's stories in order to accompany two more color illustrations (The Old Checkered House in 1860, and Early Springtime on the Farm). These were the first published color illustrations of Grandma Moses paintings and they proved so popular that Kallir first registered her paintings with the Copyright Office in Washington and then arranged for large, higher quality prints that were published in 1948 to accommodate demand.

The list of 42 paintings follows which were included in both the 1946 and 1947 editions. These paintings were referenced with the acronym "GMAP", in Kallir's 1973 catalogue raisonné. Since the plate numbers were different but the topic selections were the same, this list is ordered by painting date. Only four paintings were included from the 1940 exhibition. The 1973 catalogue raisonné numbers and Grandma Moses record book numbers are also included along with known owner information: