Give Us a Ride incorporates familiar imagery found in other Grandma Moses winter scenes – children playing in the snow and hailing a horse-drawn sled, a couple huddled close, walking arm-in-arm up a path, a simple country church with multicolored stained-glass windows – and serves as a tribute to the charming aspects of the coldest season.

More information about this painting...

Grandma Moses painted what she knew and loved best: the fields and mountains of rural America in all seasons, inhabited by farmers working their land, families marking holidays, animals grazing, and children playing out of doors, all fully engaged with their environment. Her iconic imagery, based on her memories of childhood and decades as a farmer’s wife, a mother and a grandmother, were created in her upstate New York homestead, yet these landscapes – honest rather than sentimental – evoke many humble, small towns across the nation and offer admirers and collectors a much-needed reminder to seek joy in the simple pleasures of country life. Today, Grandma Moses’ paintings can be found in museums throughout the country, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, and the Bennington Museum in Vermont, which holds the largest collection of her work.

Provenance:

The artist

To Galerie St. Etienne, New York, New York

With Vose Galleries, Boston, inventory no. 17778, October 1951

To private collection, Seekonk, Massachusetts, December 1954

By descent to the cousin of the above, private collection, Cheshire, Connecticut, to present

Labels:

1. Anna Mary Robertson Moses / Eagle Bridge, N.Y. / Born Sept. 6. 1860 / Date of Painting: 1949 March –(illegible) / Number of Painting: 1318. / Title: Give us a / Ride
2. Old, typed label affixed verso: “GIVE US A RIDE” / by Grandma Moses / This is an Original Painting / Painted March 1, 1949 / and valued at $3,000.00 / (handwritten on verso) Jimmie would have liked you to have this
3. Old business card affixed to the above: Leonard’s Antiques, Inc., / Residence Construction / Seekonk, Massachusetts
4. Copyright / by / Galerie St. Etienne / 46 West 57^th Street / New York 19, N. Y.
5. Hayes Storage, Inc. / New York, N. Y.  / (handwritten) 6969-14
6. Warren Institute for Savings / 3 Park Street, Boston 8, Massachusetts / GIVE US A RIDE / By / Grandma Moses / Anna Mary Robertson Moses was born / at Eagle Bridge, New York on September / 6^th, 1860. Already a legend though still / very much alive and painting, Grandma / Moses took up painting at 80. Her delight- / fully naïve interpretations of memories of / her childhood have become internationally / loved. This painting is dated March 1^st, / 1949. / Being shown through the courtesy of / Vose Galleries of Boston, Inc. / 559 Boylston Street / Boston 16, Massachusetts

Exhibitions:

Second Boston Exhibition of Paintings by Grandma Moses, Vose Galleries, Boston, Massachusetts, October 29 – November 17, 1951