Museum Holiday Parade Float to Feature Community Handprints and Reproduction of Popular Winter Scene Painting by Grandma Moses
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
Director of Marketing & Public Relations
Claire Ertl
certl@thewestmoreland.org
724.837.1500 x128
Museum Holiday Parade Float to Feature Community Handprints and Reproduction of Popular Winter Scene Painting by Grandma Moses
GREENSBURG, Pennsylvania (November 16, 2022) – This Saturday, staff from The Westmoreland Museum of American Art will participate in the annual Greensburg Holiday Parade presenting a float that features a larger-than-life reproduction of a work by artist Anna Mary Robertson Moses (1860-1961), who is better known as Grandma Moses. The work of art, titled Sugaring Off, was painted by the artist in 1943 and depicts a quaint winter scene of villagers engaged in maple syrup making activities. This work is currently on view at The Westmoreland as part of Gatecrashers: The Rise of the Self-Taught Artist in America, an exhibition organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
“Participating in the parade has become a fun annual tradition for our staff. We stepped up our participation both last year and this year with the creation of two festive wintry floats that members of the community had a hand in making,” stated Interim Director/CEO and Chief Operating Officer Suzanne Wright.
At the Museum’s recent Sunday Fun Day: Industrial History and Arts program on Sunday, November 6, attendees had the opportunity to place their handprints on the large frame constructed by the Museum’s Studio Programs Manager Michael Carsone, which will be used on the float to hold the image of the Grandma Moses painting. In future years, The Westmoreland plans to repurpose the frame for holiday parade floats displaying grand-scale reproductions of works of art created by young artists from the community and will be announcing a new youth art contest in 2023 to solicit entries for next year’s float.
“We thought that repurposing the frame from this year to showcase works created by children in our community would be a wonderful idea, and we are excited to launch this contest in 2023,“ commented Erica Nuckles, Director of Learning Engagement and Partnerships.
On view at The Westmoreland through February 5, 2023, Gatecrashers: The Rise of the Self-Taught Artist in America illuminates how artists, including John Kane, Horace Pippin, and Grandma Moses, overcame obstacles and “crashed the gates” of major museums in the United States, diversifying the art world across lines of race, ethnicity, class, ability, and gender. Gatecrashers is the first exhibition to focus on how self-taught artists gained their cultural power in this country thanks to evolving ideas about American identity, inclusion, and national character in art.
The Westmoreland is the closing venue for this traveling exhibition, after presentations at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta and the Brandywine River Museum of Art. The Westmoreland presentation overlaps with two other self-taught artist focused exhibitions in our region, Pittsburgh’s John Kane: The Life & Art of an American Workman at the Senator John Heinz History Center (on view through January 8, 2023) and American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection at The Frick Pittsburgh (on view through January 8, 2023).
A list of upcoming events and programs related to Gatecrashers as well as other programming for the winter season can be found on the Museum’s website at thewestmoreland.org/events.
Gatecrashers: The Rise of the Self-Taught Artist in America is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Dorothea and Leo Rabkin Foundation.
Gatecrashers is also generously supported by the Hillman Exhibition Fund of The Westmoreland Museum of American Art, The Heinz Endowments, and The Richard C. von Hess Foundation.
Permission for usage of Grandma Moses’ Sugaring Off reproduction was granted by The Kallir Research Institute, a nonprofit foundation established in 2017 to continue and expand upon the scholarship of art historian and art dealer Otto Kallir (1894-1978). Otto Kallir was keenly interested in the work of unschooled creators, like Grandma Moses, whom he “discovered” in 1940. The Moses archives are today owned and administered by the Kallir Research Institute.
The Museum thanks Blue Sky Sign Co. for their generosity in helping to cover the cost to produce the large reproduction of the Grandma Moses work for the parade.
CONTACTS:
Director of Marketing & Public Relations
Claire Ertl
certl@thewestmoreland.org
724.837.1500 x128
About The Westmoreland Museum of American Art
Western Pennsylvania’s only museum dedicated to American art, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, is a place to share meaningful cultural experiences that open the door to new ideas, perspectives and possibilities. The Westmoreland’s extraordinary permanent collection with its strong focus on the art and artists of Southwestern Pennsylvania is complemented by an impressive temporary exhibition schedule featuring both nationally traveling exhibitions and those organized by the Museum. Additionally, The Westmoreland presents a full slate of community-oriented programming as well as special events. More information is available at thewestmoreland.org and on the Museum’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles.
General admission to the Museum is free with advance online registration recommended. The Museum’s operating hours are Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10am-5pm, and Thursday from 10am-8pm during the months of December 2022 and January 2023. The Winter Lights display at the Museum is on view from dusk to 10pm nightly from Saturday, November 19, 2022 through Sunday, January 29, 2023. One can find information on registering for a visit at thewestmoreland.org/visit.