The Times highlighted her folksiness when she visited Manhattan in 1940: “Modest ‘Grandma Moses’ declared, ‘If they want to make a fuss over me, I guess I don’t mind.’”

But Moses was no naïf. A believer in women’s autonomy, she said in her autobiography: “Always wanted to be independent. I couldn’t bear the thought of sitting down and Thomas,” her husband, “handing out the money.”

And her “primitive” painting style was carefully conceived: “I like to paint something that leads me on and on in to the unknown something that I want to see away on beyond,” she wrote.

She died at 101, having created some 2,000 paintings and received two honorary doctorates.

“All Americans mourn her loss,” President John F. Kennedy said.

Nancy Wartik wrote today’s Back Story.

_____

Your Morning Briefing is published weekdays and updated all morning. Browse past briefings here.

Sign up here to get it by email in the Australian, Asian, European or American morning. To receive an Evening Briefing on U.S. weeknights, sign up here.

Check out our full range of free newsletters here.

What would you like to see here? Contact us at briefing@nytimes.com.