September 14, 2026
Crystal Bridges opens a major Grandma Moses retrospectiveCrystal Bridges Museum of American Art has opened Grandma Moses: A Good Day’s Work, a major exhibition devoted to Anna Mary Robertson “Grandma” Moses. On view from 12 September 2026 through 29 March 2027, the presentation brings together approximately 80 paintings alongside embroideries, ephemera and photographic reproductions.
A career that began late
Moses spent most of her life in rural New York and Virginia, working as a housekeeper, farmer and mother. She painted and embroidered when time allowed, but did not become a public art figure until old age. Her first solo exhibition took place in 1940, when she was 80. The apparent simplicity of that story helped turn her into a media phenomenon, yet it can also obscure the discipline, visual intelligence and working knowledge behind her art.
The new exhibition places creativity beside labour and memory. Moses’s crowded seasonal scenes are not presented merely as nostalgic pictures of rural America. They are considered as deliberate reconstructions of communal life by an artist who had observed its rhythms for decades and developed a highly recognizable way of organizing landscape, architecture and human activity.
Beyond the folk-art label
By combining paintings with textiles and documentary material, the museum aims to restore the breadth of Moses’s practice and the social context in which her reputation grew. Her popularity after the Second World War made her an emblem of optimism and self-invention, while her success also raised lasting questions about age, gender, professional training and the boundaries between folk and modern art.
The exhibition is installed in the museum’s Temporary Exhibition Gallery in Bentonville, Arkansas. Admission information and visiting hours are available from Crystal Bridges; the museum notes that members, visitors aged 25 and under, veterans and eligible SNAP participants can receive free access under its current ticket policy. | 
