page_title: Late bloomer
section_title: Art
hierarchical_section_title: Late bloomer / Adults / Art
caption_attribution_description: Grandma Moses, cropped from photo of "Grandma Moses donating her painting "Battle of Bennington" to Mrs. George Kuhner who accepts it for DAR." (Photo cropped because the painting itself is most likely still copyrighted.)
context_page_description: A late bloomer is a person whose talents or capabilities are not visible to others until later than usual. The term is used metaphorically to describe a child or adolescent who develops slower than others in their age group, but eventually catches up and in some cases overtakes their peers, or an adult whose talent or genius in a particular field only appears later in life than is normal – in some cases only in old age.
context_section_description: In art, "late bloomers" are most often associated with naïve art. This term is used for untrained artists, and so fits those who start late in life without artistic training. Hence the classic late bloomer is Grandma Moses whose painting career began in her seventies after abandoning a career in embroidery because of arthritis. An even older example is Bill Traylor who started drawing at age 83. Another painter who started late in life is Alfred Wallis, who began painting after his wife's death in his 60s. Mary Delany produced her "paper mosaiks [sic]" from the age of 71 to 88. Then there is Carmen Herrera, who did have artistic training, but who sold her first artwork in 2004 when she was 89 years old, after six decades of private painting.
caption: Grandma Moses
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