Category: Art and Music

Complete Picture Study Rotation 

Note: The picture study rotation was updated in July 2020. Some of the artists that were originally in the rotation were removed to make way a more balanced selection in terms of gender and nationality. This unfortunately had the impact of moving some artists around and you may have already studied the artists listed for this. We have included an optional replacement artist at the bottom if that is the case.

Grandma Moses (1860-1961) (or Laura Wheeler Waring - see below)

Wikipedia

A documentary made before she died: Grandma Moses! America’s Most Loved Painter of Folk Art! See this lesson plan for ideas on discussing her art.

• Cairo (1933) embroidered wool and silk on canvas
• Shenandoah Valley (1938)
• The Old Checkered House, 1860 (1942)

The Checkered House was a local legend. Situated along the Cambridge Turnpike, it was an inn where stagecoach drivers had changed horses as far back as the eighteenth century. During the Revolutionary War, the inn served as General Baum’s headquarters and field hospital. Its checkerboard front made the house a distinctive landmark that was remembered long after it burned in 1907. Moses painted a number of versions of “Checkered House,” in both winter and summer. When asked how she managed to come up with a new composition each time, she said she imagined the scene as if she were looking at it through a window. By then shifting her viewpoint slightly, she could cause the elements to fall into place differently. Compare with this one, this one, and this one in winter.

• Taking in the Laundry (1951) Moses recalled that the painting was inspired by a poem she had learned in school as a child. Some seventy years later, she could still recite it by heart:

Oh, Monday was our washing day,
and while the clothes were drying,
a wind came whistling through the line
and set them all a-flying.
I saw the shirts and petticoats
go flying off like witches.
I lost (oh bitterly I wept),
I lost my Sunday breeches.
I saw them flying through the air,
alas too late to save them.
A hole was in their ample part,
as if an imp had worn them.

• Sugaring Off (1955) Like the checkered house paintings, Grandma Moses painted many version of this iconic early sprint event; see also.
• The Rainbow (1961), her last finished painting

Laura Wheeler Waring (as an alternative to Grandma Moses)

BOOKS AND ARTICLES:

• Wikipedia
• Beautiful Shades of Brown: The Art of Laura Wheeler Waring (AMZ)
• Google Arts and Culture

VIDEOS:

• Beautiful Shades of Brown: The Art of Laura Wheeler Waring (Literally Cultured Read Aloud)
• Coloring Technique Inspired by Laura Wheeler Waring
• BkM Art Hangout: Portraiture - Laura Wheeler Waring
• Combating Racism: Betsy Graves Reyneau, Laura Wheeler Waring and Representation of Black Achievement (High School Level Lecture)

SUGGESTED SELECTIONS:

• Anna Washington Derry (1927)
• Alice Dunbar Nelson (1927)
• Family (1928)
• Still Life with Tulips and Figurine (1940)
• Four Friends (1940's)
• Woman Wearing a Red Scarf (1940's)

Tarsila do Amaral (1886-1973)

BOOKS and articles:

• Wikipedia
• WikiArt
• Why MoMA’s Exhibition of Towering Brazilian Modernist Tarsila do Amaral Misses the Mark

VIDEOS:

• Tarsila, the "Picasso of Brazil"
  
• Tarsila Do Amaral: Cannibalizing Modernism
• The painter of her country | Tarsila do Amaral | UNIQLO ArtSpeaks (discusses the painting The Moon)

SUGGESTED SELECTIONS:

• An Angler (1920)
• A Cuca (1924)
• Morro de Favela (1924) (info on Favelas)
• The Moon (1928)
• Second Class (1933)
• Still Life (unknown)

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

(Please note that many of Picasso's works contain images intended for mature audiences.)

BOOKS and ARTICLES:

• Wikipedia
• Picasso by Mike Venezia (AMZ)
• Pablo Picasso: Art for Children by E. L. Raboff (AMZ)
• The Three Musicians: A Children's Book Inspired by Pablo Picasso
  by Veronique Massenot (AMZ)
• If Picasso Painted a Snowman by Amy Newbold (AMZ)
• Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail by Laurence Anholt (AMZ)
• Picasso by Antony Mason (AMZ) - for older children
• Sylvette David
• Lesson Plans and Activities from Incredible Art

VIDEOS:

• Pablo Picasso for Elementary Students
• Pablo Picasso & Cubism
• What is Cubism? Pablo Picasso's Three Musicians at the MoMA
• National Geographic's Genius Season 2: Picasso 

SUGGESTED SELECTIONS:

• The Old Guitarist (1905)
• Acrobat and Young Harlequin (1905)
• Three Musicians (1921)
• Child with a Flower (1945)
• Portrait of Sylvette David  23 (1954) and Portrait of Sylvette David 24 Green Armchair (combine with the book The Girl with the Pony Tail, noted above)
• Landscape seen from the Workshop of the Artist (1967)

Note: The picture study rotation was updated in July 2020. Some of the artists that were originally in the rotation were removed to make way a more balanced selection in terms of gender and nationality. This unfortunately had the impact of moving some artists around and you may have already studied the artists listed for this. We have included an optional replacement artist at the bottom if that is the case.