Paintings by Beth Thomson – My Mom (#1)

I’ve shared a few of my mother’s painting and craft items via my blogsite over the last few years but now I’ve decided to publish a series of posts that summarize her body of work. 

Note: I don't know why the following segment has a white background but I couldn't figure out how to fix it! 

To begin, this posting focuses on a series of my mom’s primitive paintings that fall into the American “Folk Art Genre”, a style which was popularized by Anna Mary Robertson Moses, (aka “Grandma Moses”) in the mid-1900s.  Another well-known folk artist, Alice Latimer Moseley, continued with this style into the late part of the 20^th century. 

As an aside, I think that it’s a strange coincidence that both of these well-known artists had last names that were so similar… (Moses and Moseley)   

  

Whereas Grandma Moses tended to paint large scenes encompassing a variety of elements, such as an entire farm, my mother painted small, more intimate vignettes.  Here Mom and daughter are shelling peas.

To see a variety of Grandma Moses’ paintings, go to https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=grandma+moses&id=B057A558F2AE665BC46D330B98C2A5208B425999&FORM=IARRTH. 

My mother’s folk art/primitive paintings also exclusively focused on family, hearth and home…  In this miniature oil painting, mother and daughter are harvesting strawberries…accompanied by the baby in the carriage and a cat doing what cats do best.

I personally remember stringing cranberries and popcorn as a garland for the Christmas tree…do you?  As you can see from the photo under the painting, Laurie and I did this once many years ago when ‘little David’ was about 9 years old.  I’d tell you how old he is now…but he doesn’t like to publicize his age at this point in his life!

Processing walnuts in the fall… What a miserable task!  I have participated in this ‘event’.  The husks stain everything they touch but of course, the nuts themselves are a treat.  In addition, the husks make a nice dye for wool and fabrics. 

Mom and the children gathering wildflowers and violets in the spring…

Mom seemed to love kitchen scenes like this one with the mother, grandma, the children and the ubiquitous cat.  After all, the kitchen was and still is the heart of the home.

FYI…To view prints of some of the Alice Moseley’s folk art paintings, just go to http://www.alicemoseley.com/the-collection/available-prints/.  I own the print entitled “Labor versus Management”.  It’s a classic! 

  

Many of my mom’s folk art/primitive style paintings were sold or given to family and friends.  This is a photo of a grouping that was given to my brother Smith and his wife Mary many years ago.

Mary had also framed some original greeting cards that my mom had made...creating a mini work of art.

Mom also painted many, many tiles featuring folk art scenes and then fired them in her kiln.  I have this set of 12 which shows a family centric event for each of the 12 months of the year.  Beth’s sister Jeane Austin had these on display in her kitchen dining room in the Buckhead section of Atlanta for many years.

This little family scene from the set of 12 tiles above is a bit unusual in that the entire family, including the father, is featured.  Most of mom’s art work that includes people as part of the composition is focused on women, mothers and children.  Perhaps this was a subconscious reflection on her childhood with a truly dominant mother, the early death of my dad and/or a less than always a happy second marriage.

…another busy vignette with mom hanging out the laundry, the baby acting out in the carriage, the boy flying the kite and of course a cat and dog.  Pets were included in many of her folk art paintings. 

Here’s another close-up of one of the tiles.  In keeping with the famous folk artists of the mid to late 1900's, my mom’s primitive works all hearken back to another era where family was the true focus of everyday life.  This depicts a Michigan cellar, where the bounty of your canning and fruits and vegetables were stored for keeping over the winter months.

These next 3 paintings have migrated to our son and his family’s home in Omaha Nebraska.  Their collection of his grandma’s art works as well as his Uncle Bob’s artistic endeavors continues to increase as the years go by.

As usual…in this example, there is a cat included in this painting of mother and daughter shucking corn on the porch with the sunflowers behind them in full bloom.

This busy painting is set in the spring time…with junior flying a kite, baby on a blanket in the grass, mom with the laundry, the little girl with a basket of her own…and of course, another cat.

This is another example of one of my mom’s paintings with the father figure included in the picture.  He’s obviously just returned home from a successful hunting excursion with a goose for dinner! 

…One final large folk art style oil painting, this time on canvas.  This particular painting was actually hung for a short time in the Detroit Institute of Arts in a special exhibit.  A close examination of the picture reveals a couple of spots where my brother Robert decided to ‘improve’ on the scene by marking it up with a pen… Robert Thomson was an artist in his own right, to the extent that I’ve been unable to purchase a couple of his paintings from a dealer in Kansas City.  He’s holding on to them! 

If you are interested in visiting the largest collection of Grandma Moses’s paintings in Bennington Vermont, learn more about it at https://benningtonmuseum.org/.  Alice Moseley’s works are featured in a museum in Bay St. Louis Mississippi.  Check it out at http://www.alicemoseley.com/. 

  

As you will see in a couple of future posts, my mom…Elizabeth or Beth Weed Myers Thomson…was a very prolific artist and crafter in a variety of mediums.  Next up will be a number of her watercolors.

That’s about it for now.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave