Hoosick Falls, New York, in Winter
The Village of Hoosick Falls will always have a key place in the biography of Grandma Moses. It was here that her paintings were first discovered, sitting in Thomas' Drugstore window, and it is here that the artist is buried.
For Moses herself, however, the importance of Hoosick Falls lay not in its connection to her own career, but in the village's role in American history. Today Hoosick Falls, the closest real town to the Moses farmstead, is a sleepy hamlet, somewhat passed over by modern economic development. However, until the Great Depression, it was a bustling commercial center, its industrial potential bolstered by its situation at the confluence of the Hoosick and Walloomsack Rivers. Moses associated the area, hunting grounds of the Mohican Indian tribe, with the tales of James Fenimore Cooper. "Some say Natty Bumpo sleeps his sleep in an unknown grave in the village limits," she wrote.
Moses painted a number of versions of Hoosick Falls, showing the village in various seasons. Most follow the winding path of the Hoosick River, and may be based in part on old prints of the town. The bird's-eye view—encompassing more than would be visible from any single human vantage point—is, however, typical of Moses' unique approach.
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